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Mighty Mlkko

C721979

MIGHTY MIKKO

BY PARKER FILLMORE
CZECHOSLOVAK FAIRY TALES
THE SHOEMAKER'S APRON

Both Illustrated by Jan Matulka

THE LAUGHING PRINCE

Illustrated by Jay Van Everen

THE HICKORY LIMB

Illustrated by Rose Cecil O'Neill

THE ROSIE WORLD

Illustrated by Maginal Wright Enrigh':

llona came floating up through the waves. Page 17

MIGHTY MIKKO

A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

PARKER FILLMORE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS

BY
JAY VAN EVEREN

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE U S A. BY

THE OUINN & BOOEN COMPANY
RAHWAY. N J

To my niece
PHYLLIS

These stories of her mother's native land

' •
* • • '

• • . - ' '. : J "'•-'-

' -i * * ,*** "•,

• • . • • •

NOTE

The spirit of nationalism that swept over the small
peoples of Europe in the early nineteenth century
touched faraway Finland and started the Finns on
the quest of the Finnish. There as elsewhere scholars
who were also patriots found that the native tongue,
lost to the educated and the well-to-do, had been pre-
served in the songs and stories which were current
among the peasants. Elias Lonnrot spent a long and
busy life collecting those ancient runos from which he
succeeded in building up a national epic, the Kalevala.
This is Lonnrot's great contribution to his own country
and to the world. Beside the material for the Kalevala
Lonnrot made important collections of lyrics, proverbs,
and stories.

During his time and since other patriot scholars have

viii NOTE

made faithful records of the songs and tales which the
old Finnish minstrels, the runolaulajat, chanted to the
strains of the kantele. The mass of such material now
gathered together in the archives of the Society of
Finnish Literature at Helsingfors is imposing in bulk
and of great importance to the student of comparative
folklore.

My own excursions into the Finnish have been made
possible through the kindness and endless patience of
my friend, Lydia Tulonen (Mrs. Kurt J. Rahlson).
With her as a native guide I have been wandering some
time through the byways of Finnish folklore. The pres-
ent volume is the traveler's pack I have brought home
with me filled with strange treasures which will, I hope,
seem as lovely to others as they seemed to me when first
I came upon them.

The stories as I offer them are not translations but
my own versions. Literal translations from the Finnish
would make small appeal to the general reader. To
English ears the Finnish is stiff, bald, and monotonous.
One has only to read or attempt to read Kirby's excel-
lent translation of the Kalevala to realize the truth of
this statement. So I make no apology for retelling
these tales in a manner more likely to prove entertain-
ing to the English reader, whether child or adult.

NOTE ix

In some form or other all the tales in this book may
be found in the various folklore collections made by Eero
Salmelainen, one of the patriotic young scholars who
followed in Lonnrot's footsteps. His books were spon-
sored by the Society of Finnish Literature and used in
its campaign to bring back the Finnish language to the
Finns at a time when Swedish was the official language
of the country.

Full of local color as these stories are, it would be
vain to pretend that they are not, for the most part,
variants of stories told the world over. All that I can
claim for them is that they are dramatic and pictur-
esque, that they are told with a wealth of charming
detail which is essentially Finnish, and that they are
certainly new to the generality of English readers.
The Three Chests, so characteristic in feeling of a coun-
try famous for its lakes and marshes, is the variant of
a German story which Grimm gives as Pitcher's Bird.
Of The Forest Bride I have found variants in the folk-
lore of many lands. There are several very beautiful
ones in the Russian ; in other books I myself have retold
two, one current among the Czechs and one among the
Serbians; Grimm has two different versions in The
Three Feathers and The Poor Miller's Boy and the
Cat; and Madame d'Aulnoy has used the same story

x NOTE

in her elaborate tale, The White Cat. There is a well-
known Oriental version of Mighty Mikko in which the
part of the fox is played by a jackal and I am sure that
Mikko's faithful retainer, though neither city-bred nor
polished, is after all pretty closely related to that most
debonnaire of Frenchmen, Puss in Boots. Perrault
probably and Madame d'Aulnoy certainly are in turn
indebted to Straparola. And so it goes.

The little cycle of animal stories included under
Mikko the Fox will of course instantly invite compari-
son with the Beast Epic of Reynard the Fox. The two
have many episodes in common and both have episodes
to be found in ^Bsop and in those books of animal ana-
logues, widely read in mediaeval times, Physiologus and
the Discipline Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsus. The
Reynard as we have it is a finished satire on church and
state and in its present form has been current in Europe
since the twelfth century. It was thought at one time
that the animal stories found in Finland were debased
versions of the Reynard stories, but scholars are now
of opinion that they antedate Reynard and are similar
to the earlier simpler stories upon which the Reynard
cycle was originally built. This makes the little Finnish
tales of great interest to the student. Needless to say
I do not present them for this reason but because they

NOTE xi

seem to me charming merely as fables. The animals
here are not the clerics and the judges and the nobles
that the Reynard animals are, but plain downright
Finnish peasants, sometimes stupid, often dull, fre-
quently amusing, and always very human.

I have taken one liberty with spelling. I have trans-
literated Syojiitar, the name of the dread Finnish witch,
as Suyettar. I have been unwilling to translate by the
insufficient word, bath-house or vapor bath, that very
characteristic institution of Finnish family life, the
sauna, but have retained the Finnish word, sauna, allow-
ing the context in each case to indicate the meaning.

P.F.

New York
June 19, 1922

CONTENTS

FAOB

THE TRUE BRIDE: The Story of Ilona and the King's Son 1

MIGHTY MIKKO: The Story of a Poor Woodsman and a

Grateful Fox .25

THE THREE CHESTS: The Story of the Wicked Old Man

of the Sea .47

LOG : The Story of the Hero Who Released the Sun . . 67

THE LITTLE SISTER: The Story of Suyettar and the
Nine Brothers 99

THE FOREST BRIDE: The Story of a Little Mouse Who

was a Princess 121

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE: The Story of Helli and
the Little Locked Box 141

THE TERRIBLE OLLI: The Story of an Honest Finn and

a Wicked Troll 155

THE DEVIL'S HIDE: The Story of the Boy Who Wouldn't

Lose His Temper 171

xiii

xiv CONTENTS

PAGE

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT: The Story of a Young

Man Who Respected the Dead 193

FAMILIAR FACES:

I Mary, Mary, So Contrary ! 209

II Jane, Jane, Don't Complain! 215

III Susan Walker, What a Talker ! 221

MIKKO THE FOX: A Nursery Epic in Sixteen Adventures

I The Animals Take a Bite 229

II The Partners . . 235

III The Fox and the Crow 243

IV The Chief Mourner 251

V Mirri, the Cat 257

VI The Fox's Servant 263

VII The Wolf Sings 267

VIII The Clever Goat 273

IX The Harvest 279

X The Porridge 283

XI Nurse Mikko 287

XII The Bear Says North 293

XIII Osmo's Share 297

XIV The Reward of Kindness 301

XV The Bear and the Mouse ...... 307

XVI The Last of Osmo . . .309

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

Ilona came floating up through the waves . . . Frontispiece

PAGE

The old king snake has wound himself around Osmo's arm . 15
The King thought that if Mikko should see his daughter . 33
She fitted the key in the lock ....... 57

"This last and mightiest battle is for me !".... 85

Suyettar bewitching Kerttu . . . . . . .111

She beckoned to Veikko . . . . . . . .135

On it flew until it reached the broad Ocean . . . .147

Olli and the Troll's horse l6l

From the bones of the cattle he laid three bridges . . .183
"She is under an evil enchantment and I am delivering her!" 203

When she got to the middle of the stream 208

They were so busy eating and drinking 214

They carried home the treasure on their backs ... 220

Osmo, the Bear, grunted out: "Huh! That's easy! We'll eat

the smallest of us next!" 228

xvi ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGB

"Wake up, Pekka ! Wake up ! There's butter running out of
your nose!" 239

"I'll teach that Crow to interfere with my affairs!" the Fox

muttered to himself as he trotted off 249

And Mikko, beginning with a little whimpering sound, slowly

rose to a high heartrending cry 253

He jerked quickly away and fled and the Bear was left stand-
ing with his mouth wide open 259

A terrible creature landed on his nose and drove it full of pins
and needles 262

The Wolf went staggering around the room howling at the top

of his voice 269

In the confusion that followed the Wolves stampeded, running
helter-skelter in all directions 272

"Here are three of us and, see, here on the floor is our harvest
already divided into three heaps" 278

He dropped it in the water and of course it spread out far

and wide and the current carried it off 282

He ran after Mikko and was about to overtake him when
Mikko slipped into a crevice in the rocks. Only one paw
stuck out 289

Of course the instant he opened his mouth, the Grouse flew

away 292

"Why, do you know," he said, "my turnips and my bread don't
taste a bit like this!" . . 296

The first person they met was an old Horse. They put their
case to him 300

With that the Bear lifted his paw and the little Mouse scam-
pered off 306

So that was the End . . . . . . . . 315

THE TRUE BRIDE

The Story of Ilona and the King's Son

THE TRUE BRIDE

There were once two orphans, a
brother and a sister, who lived alone in
the old farmhouse where their fathers
before them had lived for many gen-
erations. The brother's name was
Osmo, the sister's Ilona. Osmo was an
industrious youth, but the farm was small and barren
and he was hard put to it to make a livelihood.

"Sister," he said one day, "I think it might be well
if I went out into the world and found work."

"Do as you think best, brother," Ilona said. "I'm
sure I can manage on here alone."

So Osmo started off, promising to come back for his
sister as soon as he could give her a new home. He
wandered far and wide and at last got employment
from the King's Son as a shepherd.

The King's Son was about Osmo's age, and often
when he met Osmo tending his flocks he would stop and

talk to him.

4 MIGHTY MIKKO

One day Osmo told the King's Son about his sister,
Ilona.

"I have wandered far over the face of the earth,"
he said, "and never have I seen so beautiful a maiden
as Ilona."

"What does she look like?" the King's Son asked.

Osmo drew a picture of her and she seemed to the
King's Son so beautiful that at once he fell in love
with her.

"Osmo," he said, "if you will go home and get your
sister, I will marry her."

So Osmo hurried home not by the long land route
by which he had come but straight over the water in
a boat.

"Sister," he cried, as soon as he saw Ilona, "you
must come with me at once for the Bang's Son wishes
to marry you!"

He thought Ilona would be overjoyed, but she
sighed and shook her head.

"What is it, sister? Why do you sigh?"

"Because it grieves me to leave this old house where
our fathers have lived for so many generations."

"Nonsense, Ilona! What is this little old house com-
pared to the King's castle where you will live once
you marry the King's Son!"

THE TRUE BRIDE 5

But Ilona only shook her head.

"It's no use, brother! I can't bear to leave this old
house until the grindstone with which our fathers for
generations ground their meal is worn out."

When Osmo found she was firm, he went secretly
and broke the old grindstone into small pieces. He
then put the pieces together so that the stone looked
the same as before. But of course the next time Ilona
touched it, it fell apart.

"Now, sister, you'll come, will you not?" Osmo
asked.

But again Ilona shook her head.

"It's no use, brother. I can't bear to go until the
old stool where our mothers have sat spinning these
many generations is worn through."

So again Osmo took things into his own hands and
going secretly to the old spinning stool he broke it and
when Ilona sat on it again it fell to pieces.

Then Ilona said she couldn't go until the old mortar
which had been in use for generations should fall to
bits at a blow from the pestle. Osmo cracked the mor-
tar and the next time Ilona struck it with the pestle
it broke.

Then Ilona said she couldn't go until the old worn
doorsill over which so many of their forefathers had

(3 MIGHTY MIKKO

walked should fall to splinters at the brush of her
skirts. So Osmo secretly split the old doorsill into thin
slivers and, when next Ilona stepped over it, the brush
of her skirts sent the splinters flying.

"I see now I must go," Ilona said, "for the house
of our forefathers no longer holds me."

So she packed all her ribbons and her bodices and
skirts in a bright wooden box and, calling her little
dog Pilka, she stepped into the boat and Osmo rowed
her off in the direction of the King's castle.

Soon they passed a long narrow spit of land at the
end of which stood a woman waving her arms. That
is she looked like a woman. Really she was Suyettar
but they, of course, did not know this.

"Take me in your boat!" she cried.

"Shall we?" Osmo asked his sister.

"I don't think we ought to," Ilona said. "We don't
know who she is or what she wants and she may be
evil."

So Osmo rowed on. But the woman kept shouting:

"Hi, there! Take me in your boat! Take me!"

A second time Osmo paused and asked his sister:

"Don't you think we ought to take her?"

"No," Ilona said.

So Osmo rowed on again. At this the creature raised

THE TRUE BRIDE 7

such a pitiful outcry demanding what they meant deny-
ing assistance to a poor woman that Osmo was unable
longer to refuse and in spite of Ilona's warning he
rowed to land.

Suyettar instantly jumped into the boat and seated
herself in the middle with her face towards Osmo and
her back towards Ilona.

"What a fine young man!" Suyettar said in whining
flattering tones. "See how strong he is at the oars!
And what a beautiful girl, too! I daresay the King's
Son would fall in love with her if ever he saw her!"

Thereupon Osmo very foolishly told Suyettar that
the King's Son had already promised to marry Ilona.
At that an evil look came into Suyettar's face and
she sat silent for a time biting her fingers. Then she
began mumbling a spell that made Osmo deaf to what
Ilona was saying and Ilona deaf to what Osmo was
saying.

At last in the distance the towers of the King's
castle appeared.

"Stand up, sister!" Osmo said. "Shake out your
skirts and arrange your pretty ribbons! We'll soon be
landing now!"

Ilona could see her brother's lips moving but of
course she could not hear what he was saying.

8 MIGHTY MIKKO

"What is it, brother?" she asked.

Suyettar answered for him:

"Osmo orders you to jump headlong into the water!'*

"No! No!" Ilona cried. "He couldn't order any-
thing so cruel as that!"

Presently Osmo said:

"Sister, what ails you? Don't you hear me? Shake
out your skirts and arrange your pretty ribbons for
we'll soon be landing now."

"What is it, brother?" Ilona asked.

As before Suyettar answered for him:

"Osmo orders you to jump headlong into the water!"

"Brother, how can you order so cruel a thing!" Ilona
cried, bursting into tears. "Is it for this you made
me leave the home of my fathers?"

A third time Osmo said:

"Stand up, sister, and shake out your skirts and
arrange your ribbons! We'll soon be landing now!"

"I can't hear you, brother! What is it you say?"

Suyettar turned on her fiercely and screamed:

"Osmo orders you to jump headlong into the
water!"

"If he says I must, I must!" poor Ilona sobbed, and
with that she leapt overboard.

Osmo tried to save her but Suyettar held him back

THE TRUE BRIDE 9

and with her own arms rowed off and Ilona was left
to sink.

"What will become of me now!" Osmo cried. "When
the King's Son finds I have not brought him my sister
he will surely order my death!"

"Not at all!" Suyettar said. "Do as I say and no
harm will come to you. Offer me to the King's Son
and tell him I am your sister. He won't know the
difference and anyway I'm sure I'm just as beauti-
ful as Ilona ever was!"

With that Suyettar opened the wooden box that
held Ilona's clothes and helped herself to skirt and
bodice and gay colored ribbons. She decked herself
out in these and for a little while she really did suc-
ceed in looking like a pretty young girl.

So Osmo presented Suyettar to the King's Son as
Ilona, and the King's Son because he had given his
word married her. But before one day was past, he
called Osmo to him and asked him angrily:

"What did you mean by telling me your sister was
beautiful?"

"Isn't she beautiful?" Osmo faltered.

"No! I thought she was at first but she isn't! She
is ugly and evil and you shall pay the penalty for
having deceived me!"

10 MIGHTY MIKKO

Thereupon he ordered that Osmo be shut up in a
place filled with serpents.

"If you are innocent," the King's Son said, "the
serpents will not harm you. If you are guilty they will
devour you!"

Meanwhile poor Ilona when she jumped into the
water sank down, down, down, until she reached the
Sea King's palace. They received her kindly there
and comforted her and the Sea King's Son, touched
by her grief and beauty, offered to marry her. But
Ilona was homesick for the upper world and would
not listen to him.

"I want to see my brother again!" she wept.

They told her that the King's Son had thrown her
brother to the serpents and had married Suyettar in
her stead, but Ilona still begged so pitifully to be
allowed to return to earth that at last the Sea King
said:

"Very well, then! For three successive nights I will
allow you to return to the upper world. But after
that never again!"

So they decked Ilona in the lovely jewels of the sea
with great strands of pearls about her neck and to
each of her ankles they attached long silver chains.
As she rose in the water the sound of the chains was

THE TRUE BRIDE 11

like the chiming of silver bells and could be heard for
five miles.

Ilona came to the surface of the water just where
Osmo had landed. The first thing she saw was his
boat at the water's edge and curled up asleep in the
bottom of the boat her own little dog, Pilka.

"Pilka!" Ilona cried, and the little dog woke with
a bark of joy and licked Ilona's hand and yelped and
frisked.

Then Ilona sang this magic song to Pilka:

"Peely, peely, Pilka, pide,
Lift the latch and slip inside!
Past the watchdog in the yard,
Past the sleeping men on guard !
Creep in softly as a snake,
Then creep out before they waks !
Peely, peely, Pilka, pide,
Peely, peely, Pilka !"

Pilka barked and frisked and said:
'Yes, mistress, yes! I'll do whatever you bid me!"

Ilona gave the little dog an embroidered square of
gold and silver which she herself had worked down
in the Sea King's palace.

l'Take this," she said to Pilka, "and put it on the
pillow where the King's Son lies asleep. Perhaps
when he sees it he will know that it comes from Osmo's

12 MIGHTY MIKKO

true sister and that the frightful creature he has married
is Suyettar. Then perhaps he will release Osmo be-
fore the serpents devour him. Go now, my faithful
Pilka, and come back to me before the dawn."

So Pilka raced off to the King's palace carrying the
square of embroidery in her teeth. Ilona waited and
half an hour before sunrise the little dog came panting
back.

"What news, Pilka? How fares my brother and
how is my poor love, the King's Son?"

"Osmo is still with the serpents," Pilka answered,
"but they haven't eaten him yet. I left the embroidered
square on the pillow where the King's Son's head was
lying. Suyettar was asleep on the bed beside him
where you should be, dear mistress. Suyettar's awful
mouth was open and she was snoring horribly. The
King's Son moved uneasily for he was troubled even
m his sleep."

"And did you go through the castle, Pilka?"

;'Yes, dear mistress."

"And did you see the remains of the wedding feast?"

"Yes, dear mistress, the remains of a feast that
shamed the King's Son, for Suyettar served bones in-
stead of meat, fish heads, turnip tops, and bread burned
to a cinder."

THE TRUE BRIDE 13

"Good Pilka!" Ilona said. "Good little dog! You
have done well! Now the dawn is coming and I must
go back to the Sea King's palace. But I shall come
again to-night and also to-morrow night and do you
be here waiting for me."

Pilka promised and Ilona sank down into the sea
to a clanking of chains that sounded like silver bells.
The King's Son heard them in his sleep and for a
moment woke and said:

"What's that?"

"What's -.vhat?" snarled Suyettar. "You're dream-
ing! Go back to sleep!"

A few hours later when he woke again, he found
the lovely square of embroidery on his pillow.

"Who made this?" he cried.

Suyettar was busy combing her snaky locks. She
turned on him quickly.

"Who made what?"

When she saw the embroidery she tried to snatch it
from him, but he held it tight.

"I made it, of course!" she declared. "Who but me
would sit up all night and work while you lay snoring!"

But the King's Son, as he folded the embroidery,
muttered to himself:

"It doesn't look to me much like your work!"

14 MIGHTY MIKKO

After he had breakfasted, the King's Son asked for
news of Osmo. A slave was sent to the place of the
serpents and when he returned he reported that Osmo
was sitting amongst them uninjured.

"The old king snake has made friends with him,"
he added, "and has wound himself around Osmo's

arm."

The King's Son was amazed at this news and also
relieved, for the whole affair troubled him sorely and
he was beginning to suspect a mystery.

He knew an old wise woman who lived alone in a
little hut on the seashore and he decided he would go
and consult her. So he went to her and told her about
Osmo and how Osmo had deceived him in regard to
his sister. Then he told her how the serpents instead
of devouring Osmo had made friends with him and
last he showed her the square of lovely embroidery he
had found on his pillow that morning.

"There is a mystery somewhere, granny," he said
in conclusion, "and I know not how to solve it."

The old woman looked at him thoughtfully.

"My son," she said at last, "that is never Osmo's
sister that you have married. Take an old woman's
word — it is Suyettar! Yet Osmo's sister must be alive
and the embroidery must be a token from her. It

TTie old Icing snake lias wound himself around Osmo's arm

THE TRUE BRIDE ^

probably means that she begs you ta release her
brother."

"Suyettar!" repeated the King's Son, aghast.

At first he couldn't believe such a horrible thing
possible and yet that, if it were so, would explain much.

"I wonder if you're right," he said. "I must be
on my guard!"

That night on the stroke of midnight to the sound
of silver chimes Ilona came floating up through the
waves and little Pilka, as she appeared, greeted her
with barks of joy.

As before Ilona sang:

"Peely, peely, Pilka, pide,
Lift the latch and slip inside!
Past the watchdog in the yard,
Past the sleeping men on guard !
Creep in softly as a snake,
Then creep out before they wake !
Peely, peely, Pilka, pide,
Peely, peely, Pilka 1"

This time Ilona gave Pilka a shirt for the King's Son.
Beautifully embroidered it was in gold and silver and
Ilona herself had worked it in the Sea King's
palace.

Pilka carried it safely to the castle and left it on the

18 MIGHTY MIKKO

pillow where the King's Son could see it as soon as he
woke. Then Pilka visited the place of the serpents and
before the first ray of dawn was back at the seashore
to reassure Ilona of Osmo's safety.

Then dawn came and Ilona, as she sank in the waves
to the chime of silver bells, called out to Pilka:

"Meet me here to-night at the same hour! Fail me
not, dear Pilka, for to-night is the last night that the
Sea King will allow me to come to the upper world!"
Pilka, howling with grief, made promise:
"I'll be here, dear mistress, that I will!"
The King's Son that morning, as he opened his eyes,
saw the embroidered shirt lying on the pillow at his
head. He thought at first he must be dreaming for
it was more beautiful than any shirt that had ever
been worked by human fingers.

"Ah!" he sighed at last, "who made this?"
"Who made what?" Suyettar demanded rudely.
When she saw the shirt she tried to snatch it, but
the King's Son held it from her. Then she pretended
to laugh and said:

"Oh, that! I made it, of course! Do you think any
one else in the world would sit up all night and work
for you while you lie there snoring ! And small thanks
I get for it, too!"

THE TRUE BRIDE 19

"It doesn't look to me like your work!" said the
King's Son significantly.

Again the slave reported to him that Osmo was alive
and unhurt by the serpents.

"Strange!" thought the King's Son.

He took the embroidered shirt and made the old wise
woman another visit.

"Ah!" she said, when she saw the shirt, "now I un-
derstand! Listen, my Prince: last night at midnight
I was awakened by the chime of silver bells and I got
up and looked out the door. Just there at the water's
edge, close to that little boat, I saw a strange sight.
A lovely maiden rose from the waves holding in her
hands the very shirt that you now have. A little dog
that was lying in the boat greeted her with barks of
joy. She sang a magic rime to the dog and gave it
the shirt and off it ran. That maid, my Prince, must
be Ilona. She must be in the Sea King's power and I
think she is begging you to rescue her and to release
her brother."

The King's Son slowly nodded his head.

"Granny, I'm sure what you say is true! Help me
to rescue Ilona and I shall reward you richly."

'Then, my son, you must act at once, for to-night,
I heard Ilona say, is the last night that the Sea King

20 MIGHTY MIKKO

will allow her to come to the upper world. Go now
to the smith and have him forge you a strong iron
chain and a great strong scythe. Then to-night hide
you down yonder in the shadow of the boat. At mid-
night when you hear the silver chimes and the maiden
slowly rises from the waves, throw the iron chain about
her and quickly draw her to you. Then, with one sweep
of your scythe, cut the silver chains that are fastened
to her ankles. But remember, my son, that is not all.
She is under enchantment and as you try to grasp her
the Sea King will change her to many things — a fish,
a bird, a fly, and I know not what, and if in any form
she escape you, then all is lost."

At once the King's Son hurried away to the smithy
and had the smith forge him a strong iron chain and
a heavy sharp scythe. Then when night fell he hid in
the shadow of the boat and waited. Pilka snuggled
up beside him. Midnight came and to the sweet chim-
ing as of silver bells Ilona slowly rose from the waves.
As she came she began singing:

"Peely, peely, Pilka, pide "

Instantly the King's Son threw the strong iron chain
about her and drew her to him. Then with one mighty
sweep of the scythe he severed the silver chains that

THE TRUE BRIDE 21

were attached to her ankles and the silver chains fell
chiming into the depths. Another instant and the
maiden in his arms was no maiden but a slimy fish that
squirmed and wriggled and almost slipped through his
fingers. He killed the fish and, lo! it was not a fish
but a frightened bird that struggled to escape. He
killed the bird and, lo! it was not a bird but a writhing
lizard. And so on through many transformations,
growing finally small and weak until at last there was
only a mosquito. He crushed this and in his arms he
found again the lovely Ilona.

"Ah, dear one," he said, "you are my true bride
and not Suyettar who pretended she was you! Come,
we will go at once to the castle and confront her!"

But Ilona cried out at this:

"Not there, my Prince, not there! Suyettar if she
saw me would kill me and devour me! Keep me from
her!"

'Very well, my dear one," the King's Son said.
"We'll wait until to-morrow and after to-morrow there
will be no Suyettar to fear."

So for that night they took shelter in the old wise
woman's hut, Ilona and the King's Son and faithful
little Pilka.

The next morning early the King's Son returned to

22 MIGHTY MIKKO

the castle and had the sauna heated. Just inside the
door he had a deep hole dug and filled it with burning
tar. Then over the top of the hole he stretched a brown
mat and on the brown mat a blue mat. When all was
ready he went indoors and roused Suyettar.

"Where have you been all night?" she demanded
angrily.

"Forgive me this time," he begged in pretended
humility, "and I promise never again to be parted
from my own true bride. Come now, my dear, and
bathe for the sauna is ready."

Then Suyettar, who loved to have people see her
go to the sauna just as if she were a real human being,
put on a long bathrobe and clapped her hands. Four
slaves appeared. Two took up the train of her bath-
robe and the two others supported her on either side.
Slowly she marched out of the castle, across the court-
yard, and over to the sauna.

"They all really think I'm a human princess!" she
said to herself, and she was so sure she was beautiful
and admired that she tossed her head and smirked from
side to side and took little mincing steps. •

When she reached the sauna, she was ready to drop
the bathrobe and jump over the doorsill to the steam-
ing shelf, but the King's Son whispered :

THE TRUE BRIDE 23

"Nay! Nay! Remember your dignity as a beautiful
princess and walk over the blue mat!"

So with one more toss of her head, one more smirk
of her ugly face, Suyettar stepped on the blue mat
and sank into the hole of burning tar. Then the King's
Son quickly locked the door of the sauna and left her
there to burn in the tar, for burning, you know, is the
only way to destroy Suyettar. As she burned the last
hateful thing Suyettar did was to tear out handfuls of
her hair and scatter them broadcast in the air.

"Let these," she cried, yelling and cursing, "turn into
mosquitos and worms and moths and trouble mankind
forever!"

Then her yells grew fainter and at last ceased alto-
gether and the King's Son knew that it was now safe
to bring Ilona home. First, however, he had Osmo re-
leased from the place of the serpents and asked his
forgiveness for the unjust punishment.

Then he and Osmo together went to the hut of the
old wise woman and there with tears of happiness the
brother and sister were reunited. The King's Son to
show his gratitude to the old wise woman begged her to
accompany them to the castle and presently they all
set forth with Pilka frisking ahead and barking for

joy.

24) MIGHTY MIKKO

That day there was a new wedding feast spread at
the castle and this time it was not bones and fish heads
and burnt crusts but such food as the King's Son had
not tasted for many a day.

To celebrate his happy marriage the King's Son made
Osmo his chamberlain and gave Pilka a beautiful new
collar.

"Now at last," Ilona said, "I am glad I left the house
of my forefathers."

MIGHTY MIKKO

The Story of a Poor Woodsman and a Grateful Fox

MIGHTY MIKKO

There was once an old woodsman
and his wife who had an only son
named Mikko. As the mother lay
dying the young man wept bitterly.

"When you are gone, my dear
mother," he said, "there will be no one
left to think of me."

The poor woman comforted him as best she could
and said to him:

'You will still have your father."
Shortly after the woman's death, the old man, too,
was taken ill.

MNow, indeed, I shall be left desolate and alone,"
Mikko thought, as he sat beside his father's bedside
and saw him grow weaker and weaker.

"My boy," the old man said just before he died, "I
have nothing to leave you but the three snares with
which these many years I have caught wild animals.
Those snares now belong to you. When I am dead,

28 MIGHTY MIKKO

go into the woods and if you find a wild creature caught
in any of them, free it gently and bring it home alive."

After his father's death, Mikko remembered the
snares and went out to the woods to see them. The first
was empty and also the second, but in the third he
found a little red Fox. He carefully lifted the spring
that had shut down on one of the Fox's feet and then
carried the little creature home in his arms. He shared
his supper with it and when he lay down to sleep the
Fox curled up at his feet. They lived together some
time until they became close friends.

"Mikko," said the Fox one day, "why are you so
sad?"

"Because I'm lonely."

"Pooh!" said the Fox. "That's no way for a young
man to talk! You ought to get married! Then you
wouldn't feel lonely!'*

"Married!" Mikko repeated. "How can I get
married? I can't marry a poor girl because I'm too
poor myself and a rich girl wouldn't marry me."

"Nonsense!" said the Fox. "You're a fine well set
up young man and you're kind and gentle. What more
could a princess ask?"

Mikko laughed to think of a princess wanting him
for a husband.

MIGHTY MIKKO 29

"I mean what I say!" the Fox insisted. "Take our
own Princess now. What would you think of marry-
ing her?'*

Mikko laughed louder than before.

"I have heard," he said, "that she is the most beau-
tiful princess in the world! Any man would be happy
to marry her!"

"Very well," the Fox said, "if you feel that way
about her then I'll arrange the wedding for you."

With that the little Fox actually did trot off to the
royal castle and gain audience with the King.

"My master sends you greetings," the Fox said,
"and he begs you to loan him your bushel measure."

"My bushel measure!" the King repeated in sur-
prise. "Who is your master and why does he want
my bushel measure?"

"Ssh!" the Fox whispered as though he didn't want
the courtiers to hear what he was saying. Then slipping
up quite close to the King he murmured in his ear:

"Surely you have heard of Mikko, haven't you? —
Mighty Mikko as he's called."

The King had never heard of any Mikko who was
known as Mighty Mikko but, thinking that perhaps
he should have heard of him, he shook his head and
murmured :

30 MIGHTY MIKKO

"H'm! Mikko! Mighty Mikko! Oh, to be sure!
Yes, yes, of course!"

"My master is about to start off on a journey anci
he needs a bushel measure for a very particular reason."

"I understand! I understand!" the King said, al-
though he didn't understand at all, and he gave orders
that the bushel measure which they used in the store-
room of the castle be brought in and given to the Fox.

The Fox carried off the measure and hid it in the
woods. Then he scurried about to all sorts of little
out of the way nooks and crannies where people had
hidden their savings and he dug up a gold piece here
and a silver piece there until he had a handful. Then
he went back to the woods and stuck the various coins
in the cracks of the measure. The next day he returned
to the King.

"My master, Mighty Mikko," he said, "sends you
thanks, O King, for the use of your bushel measure."

The King held out his hand and when the Fox gave
him the measure he peeped inside to see if by chance it
contained any trace of what had recently been measured.
His eye of course at once caught the glint of the gold
and silver coins lodged in the cracks.

"Ah!" he said, thinking Mikko must be a very
mighty lord indeed to be so careless of his wealth; "I

MIGHTY MIKKO 31

should like to meet your master. Won't you and he
come and visit me?"

This was what the Fox wanted the King to say
but he pretended to hesitate.

"I thank your Majesty for the kind invitation," he
said, "but I fear my master can't accept it just now.
He wants to get married soon and we are about to
start off on a long journey to inspect a number of for-
eign princesses."

This made the King all the more anxious to have
Mikko visit him at once for he thought that if Mikko
should see his daughter before he saw those foreign
princesses he might fall in love with her and marry her.
So he said to the Fox:

"My dear fellow, you must prevail on your master
to make me a visit before he starts out on his travels!
You will, won't you?"

The Fox looked this way and that as if he were
too embarrassed to speak.

'Your Majesty," he said at last, "I pray you pardon
my frankness. The truth is you are not rich enough
to entertain my master and your castle isn't big enough
to house the immense retinue that always attends him."

The King, who by this time was frantic to see Mikko,
lost his head completely.

32 MIGHTY MIKKO

"My dear Fox," he said, "I'll give you anything in
the world if you prevail upon your master to visit me
at once! Couldn't you suggest to him to travel with
a modest retinue this time?"

The Fox shook his head.

"No. His rule is either to travel with a great retinue
or to go on foot disguised as a poor woodsman attended
only by me."

"Couldn't you prevail on him to come to me dis-
guised as a poor woodsman?" the King begged. "Once
he was here, I could place gorgeous clothes at his
disposal."

But still the Fox shook his head.

"I fear Your Majesty's wardrobe doesn't contain the
kind of clothes my master is accustomed to."

"I assure you I've got some very good clothes," the
King said. "Come along this minute and we'll go
through them and I'm sure you'll find some that your
master would wear."

So they went to a room which was like a big ward-
robe with hundreds and hundreds of hooks upon which
were hung hundreds of coats and breeches and embroid-
ered shirts. The King ordered his attendants to bring
the costumes down one by one and place them before
the Fox.

The King thought that if Mikko should see his daughter

MIGHTY MIKKO 35

They began with the plainer clothes.

"Good enough for most people," the Fox said, "but
not for my master."

Then they took down garments of a finer grade.

"I'm afraid you're going to all this trouble for
nothing," the Fox said. "Frankly now, don't you real-
ize that my master couldn't possibly put on any of
these things!"

The King, who had hoped to keep for his own use
his most gorgeous clothes of all, now ordered these to
be shown.

The Fox looked at them sideways, sniffed them criti-
cally, and at last said:

"Well, perhaps my master would consent to wear
these for a few days. They are not what he is accus-
tomed to wear but I will say this for him: he is not
proud."

The King was overjoyed.

'Very well, my dear Fox, I'll have the guest cham-
bers put in readiness for your master's visit and I'll
have all these, my finest clothes, laid out for him. You
won't disappoint me, will you?"

"I'll do my best," the Fox promised.

With that he bade the King a civil good day and
ran home to Mikko.

36 MIGHTY MIKKO

The next day as the Princess was peeping out of an
upper window of the castle, she saw a young woods-
man approaching accompanied by a Fox. He was a
fine stalwart youth and the Princess, who knew from
the presence of the Fox that he must be Mikko, gave
a long sigh and confided to her serving maid:

"I think I could fall in love with that young man
if he really were only a woodsman!"

Later when she saw him arrayed in her father's
finest clothes — which looked so well on Mikko that no
one even recognized them as the King's — she lost her
heart completely and when Mikko was presented to
her she blushed and trembled just as any ordinary girl
might before a handsome young man.

All the Court was equally delighted with Mikko.
The ladies went into ecstasies over his modest man-
ners, his fine figure, and the gorgeousness of his
clothes, and the old graybeard Councilors, nodding
their heads in approval, said to each other:

"Nothing of the coxcomb about this young fellow!
In spite of his great wealth see how politely he listens
to us when we talk!"

The next day the Fox went privately to the King,
and said:

"My master is a man of few words and quick judg-

MIGHTY MIKKO 37

ment. He bids me tell you that your daughter, the
Princess, pleases him mightily and that, with your ap-
proval, he will make his addresses to her at once."

The King was greatly agitated and began:

"My dear Fox—"

But the Fox interrupted him to say:

"Think the matter over carefully and give me your
decision to-morrow."

So the King consulted with the Princess and with
his Councilors and in a short time the marriage was
arranged and the wedding ceremony actually per-
formed !

"Didn't I tell you?" the Fox said, when he and
Mikko were alone after the wedding.

'Yes," Mikko acknowledged, "you did promise that
I should marry the Princess. But, tell me, now that
I am married what am I to do? I can't live on here
forever with my wife."

"Put your mind at rest," the Fox said. "I've thought
of everything. Just do as I tell you and you'll have
nothing to regret. To-night say to the King: 'It is
now only fitting that you should visit me and see for
yourself the sort of castle over which your daughter is
hereafter to be mistress!'

When Mikko said this to the King, the King was

38 MIGHTY MIKKO

overjoyed for now that the marriage had actually
taken place he was wondering whether he hadn't per-
haps been a little hasty. Mikko's words reassured him
and he eagerly accepted the invitation.

On the morrow the Fox said to Mikko:

"Now I'll run on ahead and get things ready for
you."

"But where are you going?" Mikko said, frightened
at the thought of being deserted by his little friend.

The Fox drew Mikko aside and whispered softly:

"A few days' march from here there is a very gor-
geous castle belonging to a wicked old dragon who is
known as the Worm. I think the Worm's castle would
just about suit you."

"I'm sure it would," Mikko agreed. "But how are
we to get it away from the Worm?"

"Trust me," the Fox said. "All you need do is this:
lead the King and his courtiers along the main highway
until by noon to-morrow you reach a crossroads. Turn
there to the left and go straight on until you see the
tower of the Worm's castle. If you meet any men by
the wayside, shepherds or the like, ask them whose men
they are and show no surprise at their answer. So now,
dear master, farewell until we meet again at your beau-
tiful castle."

MIGHTY MIKKO 39

The little Fox trotted off at a smart pace and Mikko
and the Princess and the King attended by the whole
Court followed in more leisurely fashion.

The little Fox, when he had left the main highway
at the crossroads, soon met ten woodsmen with axes
over their shoulders. They were all dressed in blue
smocks of the same cut.

"Good day," the Fox said politely. "Whose men
are you?"

"Our master is known as the Worm," the woodsmen
told him.

"My poor, poor lads!" the Fox said, shaking his head
sadly.

"What's the matter?" the woodsmen asked.

For a few moments the Fox pretended to be too over-
come with emotion to speak. Then he said :

"My poor lads, don't you know that the King is
coming with a great force to destroy the Worm and all
his people?"

The woodsmen were simple fellows and this news
threw them into great consternation.

"Is there no way for us to escape?" they asked.

The Fox put his paw to his head and thought.

"Well," he said at last, "there is one way you might
escape and that is by telling every one who asks you

40 MIGHTY MIKKO

that you are the Mighty Mikko's men. But if you
value your lives never again say that your master is
the Worm."

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!" the woodsmen at
once began repeating over and over. "We are Mighty
Mikko's men!"

A little farther on the road the Fox met twenty
grooms, dressed in the same blue smocks, who were tend-
ing a hundred beautiful horses. The Fox talked to
the twenty grooms as he had talked to the woodsmen
and before he left them they, too, were shouting:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

Next the Fox came to a huge flock of a thousand
sheep tended by thirty shepherds all dressed in the
Worm's blue smocks. He stopped and talked to
them until he had them roaring out:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

Then the Fox trotted on until he reached the castle
of the Worm. He found the Worm himself inside loll-
ing lazily about. He was a huge dragon and had been
a great warrior in his day. In fact his castle and his
lands and his servants and his possessions had all been
won in battle. But now for many years no one had
cared to fight him and he had grown fat and lazy.

"Good day," the Fox said, pretending to be very

MIGHTY MIKKO 41

breathless and frightened. "You're the Worm, aren't

•3M

youf

"Yes," the dragon said, boastfully, "I am the great
Worm!"

The Fox pretended to grow more agitated.

"My poor fellow, I am sorry for you! But of course
none of us can expect to live forever. Well, I must
hurry along. I thought I would just stop and say
good-by."

Made uneasy by the Fox's words, the Worm cried
out:

"Wait just a minute! What's the matter?"

The Fox was already at the door but at the Worm's
entreaty he paused and said over his shoulder:

"Why, my poor fellow, you surely know, don't you?
that the King with a great force is coming to destroy
you and all your people!"

"What!" the Worm gasped, turning a sickly green
with fright. He knew he was fat and helpless and
could never again fight as in the years gone by.

"Don't go just yet!" he begged the Fox. "When is
the King coming?"

"He's on the highway now! That's why I must be
going! Good-by!"

"My dear Fox, stay just a moment and I'll reward

42 MIGHTY MIKKO

you richly! Help me to hide so that the King won't
find me! What about the shed where the linen is
stored? I could crawl under the linen and then if you
locked the door from the outside the King could never
find me."

"Very well," the Fox agreed, "but we must hurry!"

So they ran outside to the shed where the linen was
kept and the Worm hid himself under the linen. The
Fox locked the door, then set fire to the shed, and soon
there was nothing left of that wicked old dragon, the
Worm, but a handful of ashes.

The Fox now called together the dragon's household
and talked them over to Mikko as he had the woodsmen
and the grooms and the shepherds.

Meanwhile the King and his party were slowly cov-
ering the ground over which the Fox had sped so
quickly. When they came to the ten woodsmen in blue
smocks, the King said:

"I wonder whose woodsmen those are."

One of his attendants asked the woodsmen and the
ten of them shouted out at the top of their voices:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

Mikko said nothing and the King and all the Court
were impressed anew with his modesty.

A little farther on they met the twenty grooms with

MIGHTY MIKKO 43

their hundred prancing horses. When the grooms were
questioned, they answered with a shout:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

"The Fox certainly spoke the truth," the King thought
to himself, "when he told me of Mikko's riches!"

A little later the thirty shepherds when they were
questioned made answer in a chorus that was deafening
to hear:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

The sight of the thousand sheep that belonged to his
son-in-law made the King feel poor and humble in com-
parison and the courtiers whispered among themselves :

"For all his simple manner, Mighty Mikko must be
a richer, more powerful lord than the King himself!
In fact it is only a very great lord indeed who could
be so simple!"

At last they reached the castle which from the blue
smocked soldiers that guarded the gateway they knew
to be Mikko's. The Fox came out to welcome the
King's party and behind him in two rows all the
household servants. These, at a signal from the Fox,
cried out in one voice:

"We are Mighty Mikko's men!"

Then Mikko in the same simple manner that he
would have used in his father's mean little hut in the

44 MIGHTY MIKKO

woods bade the King and his followers welcome and
they all entered the castle where they found a great
feast already prepared and waiting.

The King stayed on for several days and the more
he saw of Mikko the better pleased he was that he had
him for a son-in-law.

When he was leaving he said to Mikko :

'Your castle is so much grander than mine that I
hesitate ever asking you back for a visit."

But Mikko reassured the King by saying ear-
nestly :

"My dear father-in-law, when first I entered your
castle I thought it was the most beautiful castle in the
world I"

The King was flattered and the courtiers whispered
among themselves :

'How affable of him to say that when he knows
very well how much grander his own castle is!"

When the King and his followers were safely gone,
the little red Fox came to Mikko and said:

"Now, my master, you have no reason to feel sad
and lonely. You are lord of the most beautiful castle
in the world and you have for wife a sweet and lovely
Princess. You have no longer any need of me, so I am
going to bid you farewell."

MIGHTY MIKKO 45

Mikko thanked the little Fox for all he had done
and the little Fox trotted off to the woods.

So you see that Mikko 's poor old father, although
he had no wealth to leave his son, was really the cause
of all Mikko's good fortune, for it was he who told
Mikko in the first place to carry home alive anything
he might find caught in the snares.

THE THREE CHESTS

The Story of the Wicked Old Man of the Sea

THE THREE CHESTS

There was once an honest old farmer
who had three daughters. His farm
ran down to the shores of a deep lake.
One day as he leaned over the water
to take a drink, wicked old Wetehinen
reached up from the bottom of the
lake and clutched him by the beard.

"Ouch! Ouch!" the farmer cried. "Let me go!"
Wetehinen only held on more tightly.
'Yes, I'll let you go," he said, "but only on this
condition: that you give me one of your daughters
for wife!"

"Give you one of my daughters? Never!"
"Very well, then I'll never let go!" wicked old Wete-
hinen declared and with that he began jerking at the
beard as if it were a bellrope.

"Wait! Wait!" the farmer spluttered.
Now he didn't want to give one of his daughters to
wicked old Wetehinen — of course not! But at the

50 MIGHTY MIKKO

same time he was in Wetehinen's power and he real-
ized that if he didn't do what the old reprobate de-
manded he might lose his life and so leave all three of
his daughters orphans. Perhaps for the good of all he
had better sacrifice one of them.

"All right," he said, "let me go and I'll send you my
oldest daughter. I promise."

So Wetehinen let go his beard and the farmer
scrambled to his feet and hurried home.

"My dear," he said to his oldest daughter, "I left a
bit of the harness down at the lake. Like a good girl
will you run down and get it for me."

The eldest daughter went at once and when she
reached the water's edge, old Wetehinen reached up and
caught her about the waist and carried her down to
the bottom of the lake where he lived in a big house.

At first he was kind to her. He made her mistress
of the house and gave her the keys to all the rooms
and closets. He went very carefully over the keys and
pointing to one he said:

"That key you must never use for it opens the door
to a room which I forbid you to enter."

The eldest daughter began keeping house for old
[Wetehinen and spent her time cooking and cleaning
and spinning much as she used to at home with her

THE THREE CHESTS 51

father. The days went by and she grew familiar with
the house and began to know what was in every room
and every closet.

At first she felt no temptation to open the forbidden
door. If old Wetehinen wanted to have a secret room,
well and good. But why in the world had he given her
the key if he really didn't want her to open the door?
The more she thought about it the more she wondered.
Every time she passed the room she stopped a moment
and stared at the door. It looked just exactly like the
doors that led into all the other rooms.

"I wonder why he doesn't want me to open just that
door?" she kept asking herself.

Finally one day when old Wetehinen was away she
thought :

"I don't believe it would matter if I opened that
door just a little crack and peeped in once! No one
would know the difference!"

For a few moments she hesitated, then mustered up
courage enough to turn the key in the forbidden lock
and throw open the door.

The room was a storeroom with boxes and chests and
old jars piled up around the wall. That was unexcit-
ing enough, but in the middle of the floor was some-
thing that made her start when she saw what it was.

52 MIGHTY MIKKO

It was blood — that's what it was, a pool of dark red
blood! She was about to slam the door shut when she
saw something else that made her pause. This was a
lovely shining ring that lay in the midst of the pool.

"Oh!" she thought to herself, "what a beautiful ring!
If I had it I'd wear it on my finger!"

The longer she looked at it, the more she wanted it.

"If I'm very careful," she said, "I know I could
reach over and pick it up without touching the blood."

She tiptoed cautiously into the room, wrapped her
gkirts tightly about her legs, knelt down on the floor,
and stretched her arm over the pool. She picked up
the ring very carefully but even so she got a few drops
of blood on her fingers.

"No matter!" she thought, "I can wash that off!
And see the lovely ring!"

But later, after she had the door again locked, when
she tried to wash the blood off, she found she couldn't.
She tried soap, she tried sand, she tried everything she
could think of, but without success.

"I don't care!" she thought to herself. "If Wete-
hinen sees the blood, I'll just tell him I cut my finger
by accident."

So when Wetehinen came home, she hid the ring and
pretended nothing was the matter.

THE THREE CHESTS 53

After supper Wetehinen put his head in her lap
and said:

"Now, my dear, scratch my head and make me
drowsy for bed."

She began scratching his head as she had many nights
before but, at the first touch of her fingers, he cried
out:

"Stop! You're burning my ear! There must be
some blood on your fingers! Let me see!"

He reached up and caught her hand and, when he
saw the blood stains, he flew into a towering rage.

"I thought so! You've been in the forbidden
room!"

He jumped up and without allowing her time to say
a word he just cut off her head then and there with
no more concern than if she had been a mosquito!
After that he took the body and the severed head and
threw them into the forbidden room and locked the
door.

"Now then," he growled, tcshe won't disobey me
again !"

This was all very well but now he had no one to
keep house for him and cook and scratch his head in
the evening and soon he decided he'd have to get an-
other wife. He remembered that the farmer had two

54 MIGHTY MIKKO

more daughters, so he thought to himself that now
he'd marry the second sister.

He waited his chance and one day when the farmer
was out in his boat fishing, old Wetehinen came up
from the bottom of the lake and clutched the boat.
When the poor old farmer tried to row back to shore
he couldn't make the boat move an inch. He worked
and worked at the oars and wicked old Wetehinen let
him struggle until he was exhausted. Then he put his
head up out of the water and over the side of the boat
and as though nothing were the matter he said:

"Hullo!"

"Oh!" the farmer cried, wishing he were safe on
shore, "it's you, is it? I wondered what was holding
my boat."

'Yes," wicked old Wetehinen said, "it's me and I'm
going to hold your boat right here on this spot until
you promise to give me another of your daughters."

What could the farmer do? He pleaded with Wete-
hinen but Wetehinen was firm and the upshot was that
before the farmer again walked dry land he had prom-
ised Wetehinen his second daughter.

Well, when he got home, he pretended he had for-
gotten his ax in the boat and sent his second daughter

THE THREE CHESTS 55

down to the lake to get it. Wicked old Wetehinen
caught her as he had caught her sister and carried her
home with him to his house at the bottom of the lake.

Wetehinen treated the second sister just exactly as
he had the first, making her mistress of the house and
telling her she might use every key but one. Like her
sister she, too, after a time gave way to the temptation
of looking into the forbidden room and when she saw
the shining ring lying in the pool of blood of course she
wanted it and of course when she reached to get it she
dabbled her fingers in the blood. So that was the end
of her, too, for wicked old Wetehinen when he saw the
blood stains just cut her head right off and threw her
body and the severed head into the forbidden room be-
side the body and head of her sister and locked the door.

Time went by and the farmer was living happily
with his youngest daughter when one day while he was
out chopping wood he found a pair of fine birch bark
brogues. He put them on and instantly found himself,
walking away from the woods and down to the lake.
He tried to stop but he couldn't. He tried to walk in
another direction but the brogues carried him straight
down to the water's edge and out into the lake until
he was in waist deep.

56 MIGHTY MIKKO

Then he heard a gruff voice saying:

"Hullo, there! What are you doing with my
brogues?"

Of course it was wicked old Wetehinen who had
played that trick to get the farmer into his power again.

"What do you want this time?" the poor farmer cried.

"I want your youngest daughter," Wetehinen said.

"What! My youngest daughter!"

"Yes."

"I won't give her up!" the farmer declared. "I
don't care what you do to me. I won't give her up!"

"Oh, very well!" Wetehinen said, and immediately
the brogues which had been standing still while they
talked started walking again. They carried the
farmer out into the lake farther and farther until the
water was up to his chin.

"Wait — wait a minute!" he cried.

The brogues stopped walking and Wetehinen said:

"Well, do you promise to give her to me?"

"No!" the farmer began. "She's my last daughter
and—"

Before he could say more, the brogues walked on
and the water rose to his nose. In desperation he threw
up his hands and shouted:

"I promise! I promise!"

She fitted the key in the lock

THE THREE CHESTS 59

So when he got home that day he said to his young-
est daughter whose name was Lisa:

"Lisa, my dear, I forgot my brogues at the lake.
Like a good girl won't you run and get them for
me?"

So Lisa went to the lake and Wetehinen of course
caught her and carried her down to his house as he
had her two sisters.

Then the same old story was repeated. Wetehinen
made Lisa mistress of the house and gave her keys to
all the doors and closets with the same prohibition
against opening the door of the forbidden room.

"If I am mistress of the house," Lisa said to herself,
"why should I not unlock every door?"

She waited until one day when Wetehinen was away
from home, then went boldly to the forbidden room,
fitted the key in the lock, and flung open the door.

There lay her two poor sisters with their heads cut
off. There in the pool of blood sparkled the lovely
ring, but Lisa paid no heed to it.

"Wicked old Wetehinen!" Lisa cried. "I suppose he
thinks that ring will tempt me but nothing will tempt
me to touch that awful blood!"

Then she rummaged about, opening boxes and chests,
and turning things over. In a dark corner she found

60 MIGHTY MIKKO

two pitchers, one marked Water of Life, the other
Water of Death.

"Ha! This is what I want!" she cried, taking the
pitcher of the Water of Life.

She set the severed heads of her sisters in place and
then with the magic water brought them back to life.
She used up all the Water of Life, so she rilled the
pitcher marked Water of Life with the water from the
other pitcher, the Water of Death. She hid her sisters
each in a big wooden chest, she shut and locked the
door of the forbidden room, and Wetehinen when he
came home found her working at her spinning wheel
as though nothing unusual had happened.

After supper Wetehinen said:

"Now scratch my head and make me drowsy for
bed."

So Lisa scratched his wicked old head and she did
it so well that he grunted with satisfaction.

"Uh! Uh!" he said. "That's good! Now just be-
hind my right ear! That's it! That's it! You're a
good girl, you are! You're not like some of them who'
do what they're told not to do! Now behind the other
ear! Oh, that's fine! Yes, you're a good girl and
if there's anything you want me to do just tell me what

• i * 99

it IS.

THE THREE CHESTS 61

"I want to send a chest of things to my poor old
father," Lisa said. "Just a lot of little nothings — odds
and ends that I've picked up about the house. I'd be
ashamed to have you open the chest and see them. I do
wish you'd carry the chest ashore to-morrow and leave
it where my father will find it."

"All right, I will," Wetehinen promised.

He was true to his word. The next morning he
hoisted one of the chests on his shoulder, the one that
had in it the eldest sister, he trudged off with it, and
tossed it up on shore at a place where he was sure
the farmer would find it.

Lisa then wheedled him into carrying up the second
chest that had in it the second sister. This time Wete-
hinen wasn't so good-natured.

"I don't know what she can always be sending her
father!" he grumbled. "If she sends another chest I'll
have to look inside and see."

Now Lisa, when the second sister was safely deliv-
ered, began to plan her own escape. She pulled out
another empty chest and then one evening after she had
succeeded in making old Wetehinen comfortable and
drowsy she begged him to carry this also to her
father. He grumbled and protested but finally prom-
ised.

62 MIGHTY MIKKO

"And you won't look inside, will you? Promise me
you won't!" Lisa begged.

Wetehinen said he wouldn't, but he intended to just
the same.

Well, the next morning as soon as Wetehinen went
out, Lisa took the churn and dressed it up in some of
her own clothes. She carried it to the top of the house
and perched it on the ridge of the roof before a spin-
ning wheel. Then she herself crept inside the third
chest and waited.

When Wetehinen came home he looked up and saw
what he thought was Lisa spinning on the roof.

"Hullo!" he shouted. "What are you doing up
there?'*

Lisa, in the chest, answered in a voice that sounded
as if it came from the roof:

"I'm spinning. And you, Wetehinen, my dear, don't
forget the chest that you promised to carry to my poor
old father. It's standing in the kitchen."

Wetehinen grumbled but because of his promise he
hoisted the chest on his shoulder and started off.
When he had gone a little way he thought to put it
down and take a peep inside. Instantly Lisa's voice,
sounding as if it came from the roof, cried out :

"No! No! You promised not to look inside!"

THE THREE CHESTS 63

"I'm not looking inside!" Wetehinen called back.
"I'm only resting a minute!"

Then he thought to himself:

"I suppose she's sitting up there so she can watch
me!"

When he had gone some distance farther, he thought
again to set down the chest and open the lid but in-
stantly Lisa's voice, as from a long way off, called out:

"No! No! You promised not to look inside!"

"Who's looking inside?" he called back, pretending
again he was only resting.

Every time he thought it would be safe to put down
the chest and open the lid, Lisa's voice cried out:

"No! No! You promised not to!"

"Mercy on us!" old Wetehinen fumed to himself,
"who would have thought she could see so far!"

On the shore of the lake when he threw down the
chest in disgust he tried one last time to raise the lid.
Instantly Lisa's voice cried out :

"No! No! You promised not to!"

"I'm not looking inside!" Wetehinen roared, and in
a fury he left the chest and started back into the
water.

All the way home he grumbled and growled:

"A nice way to treat a man, always making him

64- MIGHTY MIKKO

carry chests ! I won't carry another one no matter how
much she begs mel"

When he came near home he saw the spinning wheel
still on the roof and the figure still seated before it.

"Why haven't you got my dinner ready?" he called
out angrily.

The figure at the spinning wheel made no answer.

"What's the matter with you?" Wetehinen cried.
"Why are you sitting there like a wooden image in-
stead of cooking my dinner?"

Still the figure made no answer and in a rage Wete-
hinen began climbing up the roof. He reached out
blindly and clutched at Lisa's skirt and jerked it so
hard that the churn came clattering down on his head.
It knocked him off the roof and he fell all the way
to the ground and cracked his wicked old head wide
open.

"Ouch! Ouch!" he roared in pain. "Just wait till
I get hold of that Lisa!"

He crawled to the forbidden room and poured over
himself the water that was in the pitcher marked Water
of Life. But it wasn't the Water of Life at all, it was
the Water of Death, and so it didn't help his wicked
old cracked head at all. In fact it just made it worse
and worse and worse.

THE THREE CHESTS 65

Lisa and her sisters were never again troubled by
him nor was any one else that lived on the shores of
that lake.

"Wonder what's become of wicked old Wetehinen?"
people began saying.

Lisa thought she knew but she didn't tell.

LOG

The Story of the Hero Who Released the Sun

LOG

There was once a poor couple who
had no children. Their neighbors
all had boys and girls in plenty but
for some reason God didn't send them
even one.

"If I can't have a flesh and blood
baby,'* the woman said one day, "I'm going to have
a wooden baby."

She went to the woods and cut a log of alder just
the size of a nice fat baby. She dressed the log in
baby clothes and put it in a cradle. Then for three
whole years she and her husband rocked the cradle
and sang lullabies to the log baby.

At the end of three years one afternoon, when the
man was out chopping wood and the woman was driv-
ing the cows home from pasture, the log baby turned
into a real baby! It was so strong and hearty that
by the time its parents got home it had crawled out of
the cradle and was sitting on the floor yelling lustily
for food. It ate and ate and ate and the more it ate

70 MIGHTY MIKKO

the faster it grew. It wasn't any time at all in passing
from babyhood to childhood, from childhood to youth,
and from youth to manhood. From its beginnings it
was known in the village as Log and never received
any other name.

Log's parents knew from the first that Log was
destined to be a great hero. That was why he was so
strong and so good. There was no one in the village
as strong as he nor any one as kind and gentle.

Now just at this time a great calamity overtook the
world. The Sun and the Moon and the Dawn disap-
peared from the sky and as a result the earth was left
in darkness.

"Who have taken from us the Sun and the Moon
and the Dawn?" the people cried in terror.

"Whoever they are," the King said, "they shall have
to restore them! Where, O where are the heroes who
will undertake to find the Sun and the Moon and the
Dawn and return them to their places in the sky?"

There were many men willing to offer themselves
for the great adventure but the King realized that
something more was needed than willingness.

"It is only heroes of exceptional strength and endur-
ance," he said, "who should risk the dangers of so peril-
ous an undertaking."

LOG 71

So he called together all the valiant youths of the
kingdom and tested them one by one. He had some
waters of great strength and it was his hope to find
three heroes the first of whom could drink three bottles
of the strong waters, the second six bottles, and the
third nine bottles.

Hundreds of youths presented themselves and out of
them all the King found at last two, one of whom was
able to take three bottles of the strong waters, the other
six bottles.

"But we need three heroes!" the King cried. "Is
there no one in all this kingdom, strong enough to drink
nine bottles?"

"Try Log!" some one shouted.

All the youths present instantly took up the cry:

"Log! Log! Send for Log!"

So the King sent for Log and sure enough when
Log came he was able to drink down nine bottles of the
strong waters without any trouble at all.

"Here now," the King proclaimed, "are the three
heroes who are to release the Sun and the Moon and
the Dawn from whoever are holding them in captivity
and restore them to their places in the sky!"

He equipped the three heroes for a long journey fur-
nishing them money and food and drink of the strong

72 MIGHTY MIKKO

waters, each according to his strength. He mounted
them each on a mighty horse with sword and arrow
and dog.

So the three heroes rode off in the dark and the women
of the kingdom wept to see them go and the men cheered
and wished that they, too, were going.

They rode on and on for many days that seemed
like nights until they had crossed the confines of their
own country and entered the boundaries of an unknown
kingdom beyond. Here the darkness was less dense.
There was no actual daylight but a faint grayness as
of approaching dawn.

They rode on until they saw looming up before them
the towers of a mighty castle. They dismounted near
the castle at the door of a little hut where they found
an old woman.

"Good day to you, granny !" Log called out.

"Good day, indeed!" the old woman said. "It's
little enough we see of the day since the Evil One cursed
the Sun and handed it over to Suyettar's wicked off-
spring, the Nine-Headed Serpent!"

"The Evil One!" Log exclaimed. "Tell me, granny,
why did the Evil One curse the Sun?"

"Because he's evil, my son, that's why! He said the
Sun's rays blistered him, so he cursed the Sun and gave

LOG 73

him over to the Nine-Headed Serpent. And he cursed
the Moon, too, because at night when the Moon shone
he could not steal. Yes, my son, he cursed the Moon
and handed her over to Suyettar's second offspring,
the Six-Headed Serpent. Then he cursed the Dawn
because he said he couldn't sleep in the morning because
of the Dawn. So he cursed the Dawn and gave her
over to Suyettar's third offspring, the Three-Headed
Serpent."

"Tell me, granny," Log said, "where do the three
Serpents keep prisoner the Sun and the Moon and the
Dawn?"

"Listen, my son, and I will tell you: When they go
far out in the Ocean they carry with them the Sun and
the Moon and the Dawn. The Three-Headed Serpent
stays out there one day and then returns at night.
The Six-Headed Serpent stays two days and then
returns, and the mighty Nine-Headed Monster does
not return until the third night. As each returns a
faint glow spreads over the land. That is why we are
not in utter darkness."

Log thanked the old woman and then he and his
companions pushed on towards the castle. As they
neared it they saw a strange sight which they could not
understand. One half of the great castle was laughing

74 MIGHTY MIKKO

and rocking as if in merriment and the other half was
weeping as if in grief.

"What can this mean?" Log cried out. "We had
better ask the old woman before we go on."

So they went back to the hut and the old woman told
them all she knew.

"It is on account of the dreadful fate that is hanging
over the King's three daughters," she said. "Those
three evil Monsters are demanding them one by one.
To-night when the Three-Headed Serpent comes back
from the Ocean he expects to devour the eldest. If
the King refuses to give her up, then Suyettar's evil
son will devour half the kingdom, half of the castle
itself, and half the shining stones. O that some hero
would kill the monster and save the princess and at
the same time release the Dawn that it might again
steal over the world !"

Log and his fellows conferred together and the one
they called Three Bottles, because his strength was
equal to three bottles of the strong waters, declared
that it was his task to fight and conquer the Three-
Headed Serpent.

In the castle meanwhile preparations for the sacrifice
of the oldest princess were going forward. As the
King sewed the poor girl into a great leather sack, his

LOG 75

tears fell so fast that he could scarcely see what he was
doing.

"My dear child," he said, "it should comfort you
greatly to think that the Monster is going to eat you
instead of half the kingdom! Not many princesses
are considered as important as half the kingdom!"

The princess knew that what her father said must be
true and she did her best to look cheerful as they slipped
the sack over her head. Once inside, however, she al-
lowed herself to cry for she knew that no one could see
her.

The sack with the princess inside was carried down
to the beach and put on a high rock near the place
where Suyettar's sons were wont to come up out of the
water.

"Don't be frightened, my daughter!" the King called
out as he and all the Court started back to the castle.
'You won't have long to wait, for it will soon be
evening."

Log and his companions watched the King's party
disappear and then Three Bottles solemnly drank down
the three bottles of strong waters with which his own
King had equipped him. As he was ready to mount his
horse, he handed Log the leash to which his dog was
attached.

76 MIGHTY MIKKO

"If I need help," he said, "I'll throw back my shoe
and do you then release my dog."

With that he rode boldly down to the beach, dis-
mounted, and climbed up the rock where the un-
fortunate princess lay in a sack. With one slash of
the sword he ripped open the sack and dragged the
princess out. She supposed of course that he was the
Three-Headed Serpent and at first was so frightened
that she kept her eyes tightly shut not daring to look
at him. She expected every minute to have him take
a first bite and, when minutes and more minutes and
more minutes still went by and he didn't, she opened
her eyes a little crack to see what was the matter.

"Oh!" the princess said.

She was so surprised that for a long time she didn't
dare to take another peep.

'You thought I was the Three-Headed Serpent,
didn't you?" a pleasant voice asked. "But I'm not.
I'm only a young man who has come to rescue
you."

The princess murmured, "Oh!" again, but this time
the "Oh!" expressed happy relief.

'Yes," repeated the young man, "I am the hero who
has come to rescue you. My comrades call me Three
Bottles and you, too, may call me that. And while we

LOG 77

are waiting for the Serpent to come in from the Ocean
I wish you would scratch my head."

The princess wasn't in the least surprised at this
request. Heroes and monsters and fathers alike seemed
always to want their heads scratched.

So Three Bottles stretched himself at the princess*
feet and put his head in her lap. He settled himself
comfortably and she scratched his head while he gazed
out over the dark Ocean waiting for the Serpent to
appear.

At first there was nothing to break the glassy surface
of the water. They waited and at last far out they saw
three swirling masses rolling landward.

"Quick, my princess!" Three Bottles cried. "There
comes the Monster now ! Get you down behind the rock
and hide there while I go meet the creature and chop off
his ugly heads !"

The princess, quivering with fright, crouched down
behind the rock and Three Bottles, mounting his horse,
rode boldly down to the water's edge awaiting the
Serpent's coming.

It came nearer and nearer in long easy swirls, slowly
lifting its three scaly heads one after another.

As it approached shore it sniffed the air hungrily.

"Fee, fi, fo, fum!" it muttered in a deep voice,

78 MIGHTY MIKKO

repeating the magic rime it had learned from its evil
mother, Suyettar:

"Fee, fi, f o, f urn !
I smell a Finn ! Yum ! Yum !
I'll fall upon him with a thud !
I'll pick his bones and drink his blood !
Fee, fi, f o, f um !
Yum! Yum!"

"Stop boasting, son of Suyettar!" Three Bottles
cried. "You'll have time enough to boast after you
fight!"

"Fight?" repeated the Serpent as if in surprise.
"Shall we fight, pretty boy, you and I? Very well!
Blow then with your sweet breath, blow out a long level
platform of red copper whereon we can meet and try
our strength each with the other!'*

"Nay," answered Three Bottles. "Do you blow with
your evil breath and instead of red copper we shall have
a platform of black iron."

So the Serpent blew and on the iron platform that
came of his breath Three Bottles met him in combat.
Back and forth they raged, Three Bottles striking right
and left with his mighty sword, the Serpent hitting at
Three Bottles with all his scaly heads and belching forth

LOG 79

fire and smoke from all his mouths. Three Bottles
whacked off one scaly head and at last a second one, but
he was unable to touch the third.

"I shall have to have help," he acknowledged to him-
self finally, and reaching down he took one of his shoes
and threw it over his shoulder back to his comrades who
were awaiting the outcome of the struggle. Instantly
they loosed the dog which bounded forward to its
master's assistance and soon with the dog's help Three
Bottles was able to dispatch the last head.

He was faint now with weariness and his comrades
had to help him back to the old woman's hut where he
soon fell asleep.

Night passed and Dawn appeared. A great cry of
relief and thanksgiving went up from all the earth.

"The Dawn! The Dawn!" people cried. "God
bless the man who has released the Dawn!"

Only at the castle was there sorrow still.

"My poor oldest daughter!" the King cried with tears
in his eyes. "It was my sacrifice of her that has released
the Dawn!"

Then he called his slaves and gave them orders to
gather up his daughter's bones and to bring back the
leather sack.

"We shall need it again to-night," he said. He wiped

80 MIGHTY MIKKO

his eyes and for a moment could say no more. "Yes,
to-night we shall have to sew up my second daughter
and offer her to the Six-Headed Serpent, him that holds
captive the Moon. Otherwise the monster will devour
half my kingdom, half the castle, and half the shining
stones. Ai! Ai! Ail"

But the slaves when they went to the high rock on the
seashore found, not the princess' bones, but the princess
herself, sitting there with her chin in her hand, gazing
down on the beach which was strewn with the frag-
ments of the Three-Headed Serpent.

They led her back to her father and reported the
marvel they had seen.

"There, O King, lies the monster on the sand with all
his heads severed I So huge are the heads that it would
need three men with derricks to move one of them!"

"Some unknown hero has rescued my oldest daugh-
ter!" the King cried. "Would that another might come
to-night to rescue my second child likewise ! But, alas I
what hero is strong enough to destroy the Six-Headed
Monster!"

So when evening came they sewed the second princess
in the sack and carried her out to the rock.

Log and his companions saw the procession move
down from the castle and they saw that the castle was

LOG 81

again disturbed, one half of it laughing and one half
weeping.

"It's the second princess to-night," the old woman
told them. "Unless her father, the King, gives her to
the Six-Headed Serpent, the Monster will come and
devour half the kingdom, half the castle, and half the
shining stones. He it is that holds the Moon captive
and the hero that slays him will release the Moon."

Then he whom his comrades called Six Bottles cried
out:

"Here is work for me !"

He drank bottle after bottle of the strong waters
until he had emptied six.

"Now I am ready!" he shouted.

He mounted his mighty horse and as he rode off he
called to his comrades:

"If I need help I'll throw back a shoe and do you
then unleash my dog!"

He rode to the rock on the shore and dismounted.
Then he climbed the rock and released the second
princess. He told her who he was and as they awaited
the arrival of the Six-Headed Serpent he lay at the
princess' feet and she scratched his head.

This time the Serpent came in six mighty swirls
with six awful heads that reared up one after another.

82 MIGHTY MIKKO

In terror the second princess hid behind the rock while
Six Bottles, mounting his horse, rode boldly down to
the water's edge.

Like his brother Serpent this one, too, came sniffing
the air hungrily, muttering the magic rime he had
learned from his mother, wicked Suyettar:

"Fee, fi, fo, fum!
I smell a Finn ! Yum ! Yum !
I'll fall upon him with a thud !
I'll pick his bones and drink his blood !
Fee, fi, f o, fum !
Yum! YumP'

"Stop boasting, son of an evil mother!" Six Bottles
cried. "You will have time enough to boast after you
fight!"

"Fight?" repeated the Serpent scornfully. "Shall
we fight, little one, you and I ? Very well ! Blow then
with your sweet breath, blow out a long level platform
of white silver whereon we can meet and try our
strength one with the other."

"Nay!" answered Six Bottles. "Do you blow, blow
with your evil breath, and instead of white silver we
shall have a platform of red copper."

So the Serpent blew and on the copper platform that

LOG 83

came of his breath Six Bottles met him in combat. Back
and forth they raged, Six Bottles striking left and right
with his mighty sword, the Serpent hitting at Six
Bottles with every one of his six scaly heads and belching
forth fire and smoke from all his mouths. Six Bottles
whacked off one head, then another, then another. At
last he had disposed of five heads. He tried hard to
strike the last, but by this time the Serpent had grown
wary and Six Bottles' own strength was waning. So
he reached down and took one of his shoes and threw it
over his shoulder back to his comrades who were await-
ing the outcome of the struggle. Instantly they loosed
the dog which bounded forward to its master's assistance
and soon with the dog's help Six Bottles was able to
dispatch the last head.

Then his comrades led him, weary from the fight, to
the old woman's hut and soon he fell asleep.

While he slept the Moon appeared in the sky and a
great cry of relief and thanksgiving went up from all
the world :

"The Moon! The Moon! God bless the man who
has released the Moon!"

The King who was awakened by the sound looked out
the castle window and when he saw the Moon, returned
to its place in the sky, his eyes overflowed with grief.

84? MIGHTY MIKKO

"My poor second daughter I" he cried. "It was my
sacrifice of her that has released the Moon! To-morrow
morning I will send the slaves to gather up her bones
and to bring back the leather sack into which, alas! I
must then sew my youngest daughter for evil Suyettar's
third son, the Nine-Headed Serpent. Ai! Ai! Ai!
How sad it is to be a father!"

But on the morrow when the slaves went to the
rock they found the second princess sitting there alone
gazing down upon the scattered fragments of the Six-
Headed Serpent.

"Here she is, safe and sound!" they reported to the
King as they led the second princess into his presence,
"and, marvel of marvels! on the beach below the rock
lies the body of the Six-Headed Serpent torn to pieces!
Its heads, O King, are so monstrous that six men with
derricks could scarcely move one of them!"

"God be praised!" the King cried. "Another un-
known hero has come and saved the life of my second
child! Would that a third might come to-night and
rescue the life of my youngest child ! Alas, she is dearer
to me than both the others, but I fear me that even if
there be heroes who could dispatch the first two Ser-
pents, there is never one who can touch him of the Nine
Heads that holds the mighty Sun a captive!"

,•••••••••*••»,

^.».'«* »*.•••*•••• • ***••

'This last and mightiest battle is for me!"

LOG 87

And the poor King wept, so sure was he that nothing
could save the life of his youngest child.

When Log and his companions heard of the King's
grief, Log at once stood forth and said:

"This last and mightiest battle is for me!"

He opened the strong waters and drank bottle after
bottle until he had emptied nine.

"Now let night come as soon as it willl" he cried. "I
am ready for the Monster!"

He started forth telling his comrades he would throw
back a shoe if he needed help from his dog.

So it was Log himself who slashed open the sack for
the third time and released the Youngest Princess who
was much more beautiful than her sisters. She fell in
love with the mighty hero on sight and was so thrilled
with his godlike beauty that when he put his head in
her lap she hardly knew what to do although her father
always declared that she scratched his head much better
than either of her sisters.

They had not long to wait for soon all the Ocean was
a glitter with the swirls of the ninefold Monster who was
coming to shore with the captive Sun in his keeping.

"Await me behind the rock!" Log cried to the
Princess as he leapt upon his horse and started for-
ward.

88 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Oh, Log, my hero, be carefull" the Princess cried
after him.

Nearer and nearer came the swirls of the nine-coiled
Monster. One after another of his nine heads rose and
fell as he approached, and every head sniffed more
hungrily as it came nearer, and each head rumbled as
it sniffed :

"Fee, fi, f o, f urn !
I smell a Finn ! Yum ! Yum !
I'll fall upon him with a thud !
I'll pick his bones and drink his blood !
Fee, fi, f o, f um !
Yum! Yum!"

"Stop boasting, evil son of an evil mother!" Log
cried. "You will have time enough to boast after you
fight!"

"Fight?" roared the awful Monster. "Shall we fight,
poor infant, you and I? Very well! Blow then with
your sweet breath, blow out a long level platform of
shining gold whereon we can meet and try our strength
each with the other!"

"Nay!" Log answered boldly. "Do you blow, blow
with your evil breath and instead of shining gold we
shall have a platform of white silver."

LOG 89

So the Monster blew and on the silver platform that
came of his breath Log met him in combat. Back and
forth they raged, Log striking right and left with his
mighty sword, the Serpent hitting at Log with all his
nine scaly heads and belching forth fire and smoke from
all his nine mouths. Log whacked off head after
head until six lay gaping on the sand. But the last
three he could not get.

Suddenly he pointed behind the Serpent and cried:

"Quick! Quick! The Sun! It is escaping!"

The Serpent looked around and Log whacked off a
head. Now only two remained, but try as he would
Log could get neither of them.

Again he tried a subterfuge.

"Your wife, O Son of Suyettar ! See, yonder, they're
abusing herl"

The Monster looked and Log whacked off another
head. But one now remained and as usual it was the
hardest of them all to get. Log felt his strength wan-
ing while the Monster seemed more nimble than ever.

"I shall have to have help," Log thought.

He threw back his shoe to his comrades and they at
once loosed his dog. With the dog's help Log was
soon able to dispatch the last head. Then Three Bottles
and Six Bottles helped him off his horse and supported

90 MIGHTY MIKKO

him to the old woman's hut where he soon fell into a
deep sleep.

The next morning the blessed Sun rose at his proper
time and people all over the world, falling on their knees
with thanksgiving and weeping with joy, cried out:

"The Sun! The Sun! God bless the man who has
released the Sun !"

At the castle they waked the King with the good news
but the King only shook his head and murmured in
grief :

"Yes, the Sun is released but what care I since my
favorite child, my youngest daughter, has been sacri-
ficed!"

He dispatched the slaves to gather up her bones and
presently these returned bringing the Princess herself
and telling a marvelous tale of the beach littered with
nine severed heads so huge that it would need nine men
with derricks to move one of them.

"What manner of heroes are these who have rescued
my daughters !" cried the King. "Let them come forth
and I will give them my daughters for wives and half
my riches for dowry ! But they will have to prove them-
selves the actual heroes by bringing to the castle the
heavy heads of the Monsters they have slain."

When Log and his fellows heard this they laughed

LOG 91

with happiness and, strengthening themselves with deep
draughts of the strong waters, they gathered together
the many heads of the mighty Serpents, bore them to
the castle, and piled them up at the King's feet.
Then Log stepped forward and said:
"Here we are, O King, come to claim our reward 1"
The King, true to his promise, gave them his daugh-
ters in marriage, the oldest to Three Bottles, the second
to Six Bottles, and the lovely Youngest to Log. Then
he apportioned them the half of his riches and, after
much feasting and merrymaking, the heroes took their
brides and their riches and bidding the King farewell
started homewards.

As they rode through a great forest they sighted a
tiny hut and Log, motioning his comrades to wait for
him quietly, crept forward to see who was in the hut.
It was well he was cautious for inside the hut was
Suyettar herself talking to two other old hags.

"Ay," she was saying, "they have slain my three
beautiful sons, my mighty offspring that held captive
the Sun and the Moon and the Dawn! But I tell you,
sisters, they will pay the penalty. . . ."

To hear better Log changed himself into a piece of
firewood and slipping inside the hut hid himself in the
woodpile near the stove.

92 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Ay, they will pay the penalty!" Suyettar repeated.
"I shall have my revenge on them! A fine supper
Suyettar shall soon have, yum, yum!

I'll fall upon them with a thud!

I'll pick their bones and drink their blood!

Fools, fools, to think they can escape Suyettar's anger!"

"But sister, sister," the two old hags asked, "how
will you get them?"

Suyettar looked this way and that to make sure that
no one was listening. Then she whispered :

"This is how I shall get them: As they come through
this forest, the three men with their brides, I shall send
upon them a terrible hunger. Then they shall come
suddenly upon a table spread with tempting food. One
bite of that food and they are in my power, he-he ! Ay,
sisters, to-night Suyettar will have a fine supper!
Nothing can save them unless, before they touch the
food, some one make the sign of the cross three times
over the table. Then table and food would disappear
and also the ravening hunger. But even if that happens
Suyettar shall still get them!"

"How, sister, how?" the other two asked.

"Presently I should send upon them consuming thirst,
and then put in their pathway a spring of cold sparkling

LOG 93

water. One drop of that water and they are in my
power, he-he! Nothing can save them from me unless,
before their lips touch the water, some one make the sign
of the cross three times over the spring. At that the
spring would disappear and also their thirst. But even
if they escape the spring, I shall still get them. I shall
send great heaviness on them and a longing for sleep,
then let them come upon a row of soft inviting feather
beds. If they cast themselves upon the beds, they are
mine, he-he! to feast upon as I will! Nothing can save
but that some one make the sign of the cross three times
over the beds before they touch them. Oh, sisters, I shall
get them one way or another for there is no one to warn
them. If there was any one to warn them, he wouldn't
dare tell them what he knows for he would also know
that if he told them he would himself be turned into a
blue cross and have to stand forever in the ceme-
tery."

As Log knew now all the dangers that threatened,
he slipped away from the woodpile and, when he was
outside, took his own shape and hurried back to his
comrades.

"Away!" he cried. "We are in great danger!"
They all spurred their horses and rode swiftly on until
Three Bottles suddenly cried:

94 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Hold, comrades, hold! I am faint with hunger!"

"Me, too!" cried Six Bottles.

At that instant a great table, laden with delicious
food, appeared before them.

"Look!" cried the one of them.

"Food!" cried the other.

They flung themselves from their horses and ran
towards the table. But quick as they were, Log was
quicker. He reached the table first and, raising his
hand, made the sign of the cross three times. The table
disappeared as suddenly as it had come and with it the
strange hunger that had but now consumed them.

"Strange!" Three Bottles exclaimed. "I thought I
was hungry, but I'm not !"

"I thought I saw food just now," Six Bottles said.
"I must have been dreaming."

So they mounted again and pushed on.

"Danger threatens us," said Log. "We must hurry
and not dismount no matter what the temptation."

They agreed but presently one of them cried out and
then the other :

"Water! Water! We shall soon perish unless we
have water!"

Instantly by the wayside appeared a spring of cool
sparkling water and it was all Log could do to reach it

LOG 95

before his fellows. He did get there first and make the
sign of the cross three times whereat the spring dis-
appeared and with it the thirst which had but now
consumed them all.

"I thought I was thirsty," Three Bottles said, "but
I'm not r

"Why did we dismount?" Six Bottles asked.
"There's no water here."

So again they mounted and went forward and Log,
warning them again that danger threatened, begged
them not to dismount a third time no matter what the
temptation.

They promised they would not but presently, com-
plaining of fatigue, they wanted to. Their brides, too,
swayed in the saddle, overcome with weariness and sleep.

"Dear Log," they said, "let us rest for an hour. See,
our brides are drooping with fatigue! One hour's sleep
and we shall all be refreshed!"

Instantly beside them on the forest floor they saw
three soft white feather beds. Log leaped to the
ground but before he was able to make the sign of the
cross over more than one of the beds, his comrades and
their brides had fallen headlong on the other two.

And that was the end of poor Three Bottles and Six
Bottles and their two lovely brides. There was no way

96 MIGHTY MIKKO

now of saving them from Suyettar. She had them in
her power and nothing would induce her to give them
up.

As Log and his bride sadly mounted their horse and
rode on they heard an evil voice chanting out in triumph :

"I'll fall upon them with a thud, he-he!
I'll pick their bones and drink their blood, he-he !"

"Poor fellows! Poor fellows!" Log said, and the
Princess wept to think of the awful fate that had over-
taken her two sisters.

Well, Log and his bride reached home without further
adventure and were received by the King with great
honors.

"I knew my heroes were succeeding," the King said,
"when first the Dawn appeared again, and then the
Moon, and last the mighty Sun. All hail to you, Log,
and to your two comrades! But, by the way, where
are Three Bottles and Six Bottles?"

"Your Majesty," Log said, "Three Bottles and Six
Bottles were brave men both. By their prowess they
released the one the Dawn, the other the Moon. Then
in an evil adventure on the way home they perished. I
can tell you no more."

"You can tell me no more?" the King said. "Why

LOG 97

can you tell me no more ? What was the evil adventure
in which they perished?"

"If I told you, O King, then I, too, should perish, for
I should be turned into a blue cross and stood forever
in the cemetery !"

"What nonsense !" the King exclaimed. "Who would
turn you into a blue cross and stand you forever in the
cemetery?"

"That is what I cannot tell you," Log said.

The King laughed and pressed Log no further, but
the people of the kingdom, scenting a mystery, insisted
on knowing in detail what had happened the other two
heroes. Presently the rumor began to spread that Log
himself had done away with them in order that he might
gather to himself all the glory of the undertaking.

The King was forced at last to send for him again
and to demand a full account of everything.

Log realized that his end was near. He met it
bravely. Commending to the King's protection his
lovely bride, the Youngest Princess, Log related how
the three mighty Serpents whom they had killed were
sons of Suyettar, and how in revenge Suyettar had
succeeded in destroying Three Bottles and Six Bottles
together with their brides. Then he told the fate about
to overtake himself.

98 MIGHTY MIKKO

He finished speaking and as the King and the Court
looked at him, to their amazement he disappeared.

"To the cemetery!" some one cried.

They all went to the cemetery where at once they
found a fresh blue cross that had come there nobody
knew how. There it stands to this day, a reminder of
the life and deeds of the mighty hero, Log.

The King was overcome with sorrow at losing such
a hero. He took Log's bride under his protection and
he found her so beautiful and so gentle that soon he
fell in love with her and married her.

THE LITTLE SISTER

The Story of Suyettar and the Nine Brothers

THE LITTLE SISTER

There was once a woman who had
nine sons. They were good boys and
loved her dearly but there was one thing
about which they were always complain-
ing.

"Why haven't we a little sister?"
they kept asking. "Do give us a little sister!"

When the time came that another child was to be
born, they said to their mother:

"If the baby is a boy we are going away and you
will never see us again, but if it is a little girl then we
shall stay home and take care of it."

The mother agreed that if the child were a girl she
would have her husband put a spindle outside on the
gatepost and, if it were a boy, an ax.

"Just wait," she said, "and see what your father puts
on the gatepost and then you will know whether it is
another brother God has sent you or a little sister."
The baby turned out to be a girl and the mother was

overjoyed.

101

102 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Hurry, husband!" she cried, "and put a spindle on
the gatepost so that our nine sons may know the good
news!"

The man did so and then quickly returned to the
mother and baby. The moment he was gone Suyettar
slipped up and changed the tokens. She took away
the spindle and put in its place an ax. Then with an
evil grin she hurried off mumbling to herself:

"Now we'll see what we'll see!"

She hoped to bring trouble and grief and she suc-
ceeded. As soon as the nine sons saw the ax on the
gatepost they thought their mother had given birth to
another son and at once they left home vowing never to
return.

The poor mother waited for them and waited.

:'What is keeping my sons?" she cried at last. "Go
out to the gate, husband, and see if they are coming."

The man went out and soon returned bringing back
word that some one had changed the tokens.

"The spindle that I put on the gatepost is gone," he
said, "and in its place is an ax."

"Alas!" cried the poor mother, "some evil creature
has done this to spite us ! Oh, if we could only get word
to our sons of the little sister they were so eager to
havel"

THE LITTLE SISTER 103

But there was no way to reach them for no one knew
the way they had gone.

In a short time the husband died and the poor woman,
abandoned by her nine sons, had only her little daughter
left. She named the child Kerttu. Kerttu was a dear
little girl and her face was as beautiful as her heart was
good. Whenever she found her mother weeping alone
she tried to comfort her and, as she grew older, she
wanted to know the cause of her mother's grief. At
last the mother told her about her nine brothers and how
they had gone away never to return owing to the trick
of some evil creature.

"My poor mother!" she cried, "how sorry I am that
I am the innocent cause of your loss! Let me go out
into the world and find my brothers 1 When once they
hear the truth they will gladly come home to you to care
for you in your old age !"

At first the mother would not consent to this.

'You are all I have," she said, "and I should indeed
be miserable and lonely if anything happened you!"

But Kerttu continued to weep every time she thought
of her poor brothers driven unnecessarily from home
and at last the mother, realizing that she would never-
more be happy unless she were allowed to go in search
of them, gave up opposing her.

104. MIGHTY MIKKO

"Very well, my daughter, you may go and may God
go with you and bring you safely back to me. But
before you go I must prepare you a bag of food for
the journey and bake you a magic cake that will show
you the way."

So she baked a batch of bread and at the same time
mixed a little round cake with Kerttu's own tears and
baked it, too. Then she said:

"Here now, my child, are provisions for the journey
and here is a magic cake that will lead you to your
brothers. All you have to do is throw it down in front
of you and say:

'Roll, roll, my little cake!
Show me the way that I must take
To find at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine!'

Then the little cake will start rolling and do you follow
wherever it rolls. But, Kerttu, my child, you must not
start out alone. You must have some friend or com-
panion to go with you."

Now it happened that Kerttu had a little dog, Musti,
that she loved dearly.

"I'll take Musti with me!" she said. "Musti will
protect me !"

THE LITTLE SISTER 105

So she called Musti and Must! wagged his tail and
barked with joy at the prospect of going out into the
world with his mistress.

Then Kerttu threw down the magic cake in front of
her and sang :

Roll, roll, my little cake!
Show me the way that I must take
To find at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine!"

At once the cake rolled off like a little wheel and
Kerttu and Musti followed it. They walked until they
were tired. Then Kerttu picked up the little cake and
they rested by the wayside. When they were ready
again to start the cake a-rolling, all Kerttu had to do
was throw it down in front of her and say the magic
rime.

Their first day was without adventure. When night
came they ate their supper and went to sleep in a field
under a tree.

The second day they overtook an ugly old woman
whom Kerttu disliked on sight. But she said to her-
self:

"Shame on you, Kerttu, not liking this woman just
because she's old and ugly!" and she made herself

106 MIGHTY MIKKO

answer the old woman's greetings politely and she made
Musti stop snarling and growling.

The old hag asked Kerttu who she was and where
she was going and Kerttu told her.

"Ah!" said the old woman, "how fortunate that we
have met each other for our ways lie together!"

She smiled and petted Kerttu's arm and Kerttu felt
like shuddering. But she restrained herself and told
herself severely:

'You're a wicked girl not to feel more friendly to the
poor old thing!"

Musti felt much as Kerttu did. He no longer
growled for Kerttu had told him not to, but he drooped
his tail between his legs and, pressing up close to Kerttu,
he trembled with fright. And well he might, too, for
the old hag was none other than Suyettar who had been
waiting all these years just for this very chance to do
further injury to Kerttu and her brothers.

Kerttu, poor child, was, alas! too good and innocent
to suspect evil in others. She said to Suyettar:

"Very well, if our ways lie together then we can be
companions."

So Suyettar joined Kerttu and Musti and the three
of them walked on following the little cake. As the

THE LITTLE SISTER 107

day advanced the sun grew hotter and hotter and at
last when they reached a lake Suyettar said:

"My dear, let us sit down here for a few moments
and rest."

They all sat down and presently Suyettar said:
"Let us go bathing in the lake. That will refresh

us.'

Kerttu would have agreed if Musti had not tugged at
her skirts and warned her not to.

"Don't do it, dear mistress!" Musti growled softly.
"Don't go in bathing with her! She'll bewitch you!"

So Kerttu said:

"No, I don't want to go in bathing."

Suyettar waited until they were again journeying on
and then when Kerttu wasn't looking she turned around
and kicked Musti and broke one of the poor little dog's
legs. Thereafter Musti had to hop along on three legs.

The next afternoon when they passed another lake,
Suyettar tried again to tempt Kerttu into the water.

"The sun is very hot," she said, "and it would refresh
us both to bathe. Come, Kerttu, my dear, don't refuse
me this time!"

But again Musti tugged at Kerttu's skirts and, lick-
ing her hand, whispered the warning:

108 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Don't do it, dear mistress! Don't go in bathing
with her or she will bewitch you!"

So again Kerttu said politely:

"No, I don't feel like going in bathing. You go in
alone and I'll wait for you here."

But this was not what Suyettar wanted and she said,
no, she didn't care to go in alone. She was furious, too,
with Musti and later when Kerttu wasn't looking she
gave the poor little dog a kick that broke another leg.
Thereafter Musti had to hop along on two legs.

They slept the third night by the wayside and the
next day they went on again always following the magic
cake. In midafternoon they passed a lake and Suyettar
said:

"Surely, my dear, you must be tired and hot. Let
us both bathe in this cool lake."

But Musti, hopping painfully along on two legs,
yelped weakly and said to Kerttu :

"Don't do it, dear mistress! Don't go in bathing
with her or she'll bewitch you!"

So for a third time Kerttu refused and later, when
she wasn't looking, Suyettar kicked Musti and broke
the third of the poor little dog's legs. Thereafter Musti
hopped on as best he could on only one leg.

Well, they went on and on. When night came they

THE LITTLE SISTER 109

slept by the roadside and then next morning they started
on again. The sun grew hot and by midafternoon
Kerttu was tired and ready to rest. When they reached
a lake Suyettar again begged that they both go in bath-
ing. Kerttu was tempted to agree when poor Musti
threw himself panting at her feet and whimpered :

"Don't do it, dear mistress! Don't go in bathing
with her or she will bewitch you!"

So Kerttu again refused.

"That's right, dear mistress!'* Musti panted, "don't
do it! I shall soon be dead, I know, for she hates me,
but before I die I want to warn you one last time never
to go in bathing with her or she will bewitch you!"

"What's that dog saying?" Suyettar demanded
angrily, and without waiting for an answer she picked
up a heavy piece of wood and struck poor Musti such
a blow on the head that it killed him.

"What have you done to my poor little dog?" Kerttu
cried.

"Don't mind him, my dear," Suyettar said. "He
was sick and lame and it was better to put him out of
his misery."

Suyettar tried to soothe Kerttu and make her forget
Musti but all afternoon Kerttu wept to think that she
would never again see her faithful little friend.

110 MIGHTY MIKKO

The next afternoon when Suyettar begged her to go
in bathing there was no Musti to warn her against it
and at last Kerttu allowed herself to be persuaded.
She was tired from her many days' wandering and it
was true that the first touch of the cool water refreshed
her.

"Now splash water in my face!" Suyettar cried.

But Kerttu didn't want to splash water into
Suyettar's face for she supposed Suyettar was an old
woman and she thought it would be disrespectful to
splash water into the face of an old woman.

"Do you hear me!" screamed Suyettar.

When Kerttu still hesitated, Suyettar looked at her
with such a terrible, threatening expression that Kerttu
did as she was bidden. She splashed water into
Suyettar's face and, as the water touched Suyettar's
eyes, Suyettar cried out :

"Your bonny looks give up to me
And you take mine for all to see !"

Instantly they two changed appearance: Suyettar
looked young and beautiful like Kerttu, and Kerttu
was changed to a hideous old hag. Then too late she
realized that the awful old woman to whom she had
been so polite was Suyettar.

Suyettar bewitching Kerttu

THE LITTLE SISTER 113

"Oh, why," Kerttu cried, "why didn't I heed poor
Musti's warning!"

Suyettar dragged her roughly out of the water.

"Come along!" she said. "Dress yourself in those
rags of mine and start that cake a-rolling! We ought
to reach your brothers' house by to-night."

So poor Kerttu had to dress herself in Suyettar's
filthy old garments while Suyettar, looking like a fresh
young girl, decked herself out in Kerttu's pretty bodice
and skirt.

Unwillingly now and with a heavy heart Kerttu threw
down the cake and said :

"Roll, roll, my little cake!
Show me the way that I must take
To find at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine !"

Off rolled the little cake and they two followed it,
Kerttu weeping bitterly and Suyettar taunting her with
ugly laughs. Then suddenly Kerttu forgot to weep for
Suyettar took from her her memory and her tongue.

The little cake led them at last to a farmhouse before
which it stopped. This was where the nine brothers
were living. Eight of them were out working in the
fields but the youngest was at home. He opened the

MIGHTY MIKKO

door and when Suyettar told him that she was Kerttu,
his sister, he kissed her tenderly and made her welcome.
Then he invited her inside and they sat side by side on
the bench and talked and Suyettar told him all she had
heard from Kerttu about his mother and about the
tokens which had been changed at Kerttu's birth. The
youngest brother listened eagerly and Suyettar told her
story so glibly that of course he supposed that she was
his own true sister.

"And who is the awful looking old hag that has come
with you?" he asked pointing at Kerttu.

"That? Oh, that's an old serving woman whom our
mother sent with me to bear me company. She's dumb
and foolish but she's a good herd and we can let her
drive the cow out to pasture every day."

The older brothers when they came home were greatly
pleased to find what they thought was their sister1.
They began to love her at once and to pet her and they
said that now she must stay with them and keep house
for them. She told them that was what she wanted to
do and she said that now she was here the youngest
brother need no longer stay at home but could go out
every morning with the rest of them to work in the
fields.

So now began a new life for poor Kerttu. In the

THE LITTLE SISTER 115

morning after the brothers were gone Suyettar would
scold and abuse her. She would bake a cake for her
dinner to be eaten in the fields and she would fill the
cake with stones and sticks and filth. Then she would
take Kerttu as far as the gate where she would give her
back her tongue and her memory and order her roughly
to drive the cow to pasture and look after it all day
long. In the late afternoon when Kerttu drove home
the cow, Suyettar would meet her at the gate and take
from her her tongue and her memory and then in the
evening the brothers would see her as a foolish old
woman who couldn't talk. Every morning and every
evening Kerttu begged Suyettar to show her a little
mercy, but far from showing her any mercy Suyettar
grew more cruel from day to day.

Suyettar was very proud to think that nine handsome
young men took her for a beautiful girl and she felt
sure they would never find out their mistake for only
Kerttu knew who she really was and Kerttu was entirely
in her power.

At night seated in the shadow in a far corner of the
kitchen with her nine brothers laughing and talking
Kerttu felt no sorrow for at such times of course she
had no memory. But during the day it was different.
Then when she was alone in the meadow she had her

11G MIGHTY MIKKO

memory and her tongue and she thought about her poor
mother at home anxiously awaiting her return and she
thought of her nine sturdy brothers all of whom might
now through her mistake fall victims to Suyettar.
These thoughts made her weep with grief and as the
days went by she put this grief into a song which she
sang constantly :

"I've found at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine,
But they know me not from stick or stone!
They leave me here to weep alone,
While Suyettar sits in my place
With stolen looks and stolen face!
She snared me first with evil guile
And now she mocks me all the while :
By night she takes my tongue away,
She feeds me sticks and stones by day ! . . .
Oh, little they guess, the brothers nine,
That their own true mother is also mine !"

The brothers as they worked in nearby fields used to
hear the song and they wondered about it.

"Strange!" they said to one another. "Can that be
the old woman singing? In the evening at home she
never opens her mouth and our dear sister always says
that she's dumb and foolish."

One afternoon when Kerttu's song sounded parti-

THE LITTLE SISTER 117

cularly sad, the youngest brother crept close to the
meadow where Kerttu was sitting in order to hear the
words. He listened carefully and then hurried back to
the others and with frightened face told them what he
had heard.

"Nonsense !" the older brothers said. "It can't be so !"
However, they, too, wanted to hear for themselves
the words of the strange song, so they all crept near to
listen.

It looked like an old hag who was singing but the
voice that came out of the withered mouth was the voice
of a young girl. As they listened they, too, grew pale :

"I've found at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine,
But they know me not from stick or stone!
They leave me here to weep alone,
While Suyettar sits in my place
With stolen looks and stolen face!
She snared me first with evil guile
And now she mocks me all the while:
By night she takes my tongue away,
She feeds me sticks and stones by day ! , . .
Oh, little they guess, the brothers nine,
That their own true mother is also mine!'*

"Can it be true?" they said, whispering together.
They sent the youngest brother to question Kerttu

118 MIGHTY MIKKO

and he, when he had heard her story, believed it true.
Then the other brothers went to her one by one and
questioned her and finally they were all convinced of
the truth of her story.

"It is well for us," they said, "if we do not all fall into
the power of that awful creature 1 How, O how can
we rescue our poor little sister!"

"I can never get back my own looks," Kerttu said,
"unless Suyettar splashes water into my eyes and unless
I cry out a magic rime as she does it."

The brothers discussed one plan after another and
at last agreed on one that they thought might deceive
Suyettar.

They had Kerttu inflame her eyes with dust and come
groping home one midday. The brothers, too, were at
home and as Kerttu came stumbling into the kitchen
they said to Suyettar :

"Oh, sister, sister, see the poor old woman! Some-
thing ails her! Her eyes — they're all red and swollen!
Get some water and bathe them!"

"Nonsense!" Suyetter said. "The old hag's well
enough ! Let her be ! She doesn't need any attention I"

"Oh, sister!" the youngest brother said, reproach-
fully, "is that any way for a human, kindhearted girl

THE LITTLE SISTER 119

like you to talk? If you won't bathe the old creature's
eyes, I will myself!"

Then Suyettar who of course wanted them to think
that she was a human, kindhearted girl said, no, she
would bathe them. So she took a basin of water over
to Kerttu and told her to lean down her head. As she
splashed the first drop of water into Kerttu's eyes,
Kerttu cried out :

"My own true looks give back to me
And take your own for all to see !"

Instantly Suyettar was again a hideous old hag
though still dressed in Kerttu's pretty bodice and skirt,
and Kerttu was herself again, young and fresh and
sweet, though still incased in Suyettar's rags. But the
brothers pretended that they saw no difference and kept
on talking to Suyettar as though they still thought her
Kerttu. And Suyettar because her eyes were blinded
with the dust supposed that they were still deceived.

Then one of the brothers said to Suyettar:

"Sister dear, the sauna is all heated and ready.
Don't you want to bathe?"

Suyettar thought that this would be a fine chance
to wash the dust from her eyes, so she let them lead

120 MIGHTY MIKKO

her to the sauna. Once they got her inside they locked
the door and set the sauna a-fire. Oh, the noise she
made then when she found she had been trapped ! She
kicked and screamed and cursed and threatened! But
Kerttu and the brothers paid no heed to her. They left
her burning in the sauna while they hurried homewards.
They found their poor old mother seated at the win-
dow weeping, for she thought that now Kerttu as well
as her sons was lost forever. As Kerttu and the nine
handsome young men came in the gate she didn't recog-
nize them until Kerttu sang out:

"I bring at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine!"

Then she knew who they were and with thanks to
God she welcomed them home.

THE FOREST BRIDE

The Story of a Little Mouse Who Was a Princess

THE FOREST BRIDE

There was once a farmer who had
three sons. One day when the boys
were grown to manhood he said to
them:

"My sons, it is high time that you
were all married. To-morrow I wish
you to go out in search of brides."

"But where shall we go?" the oldest son asked.
"I have thought of that, too," the father said. "Do
each of you chop down a tree and then take the direction
in which the fallen tree points. I'm sure that each of
you if you go far enough in that direction will find a
suitable bride."

So the next day the three sons chopped down trees.
The oldest son's tree fell pointing north.

"That suits me!" he said, for he knew that to the
north lay a farm where a very pretty girl lived.

The tree of the second son when it fell pointed south.
"That suits me!" the second son declared thinking of

123

124 MIGHTY MIKKO

a girl that he had often danced with who lived on a farm
to the south.

The youngest son's tree — the youngest son's name
was Veikko — when it fell pointed straight to the forest.

"Ha! Ha!" the older brothers laughed. "Veikko
will have to go courting one of the Wolf girls or one of
the Foxes!"

They meant by this that only animals lived in the
forest and they thought they were making a good joke
at Veikko's expense. But Veikko said he was perfectly
willing to take his chances and go where his tree pointed.

The older brothers went gaily off and presented their
suits to the two farmers whose daughters they admired.
Veikko, too, started off with brave front but after he
had gone some distance in the forest his courage began
to ebb.

"How can I find a bride," he asked himself, "in a
place where there are no human creatures at all!"

Just then he came to a little hut. He pushed open
the door and went in. It was empty. To be sure there
was a little mouse sitting on the table, daintily combing
her whiskers, but a mouse of course doesn't count.

"There 's nobody here!" Veikko said aloud.

The little mouse paused in her toilet and turning to-
wards him said reproachfully:

THE FOREST BRIDE 125

"Why, Veikko, I'm here!"

"But you don't count. You're only a mouse!"

"Of course I count!" the little mouse declared. "But
tell me, what were you hoping to find?'*

"I was hoping to find a sweetheart."

The little mouse questioned him further and Veikko
told her the whole story of his brothers and the trees.

"The two older ones are finding sweethearts easily
enough," Veikko said, "but I don't see how I can off
here in the forest. And it will shame me to have to go
home and confess that I alone have failed."

"See here, Veikko," the little mouse said, "why don't
you take me for your sweetheart?"

Veikko laughed heartily.

"But you're only a mouse! Whoever heard of a man
having a mouse for a sweetheart!"

The mouse shook her little head solemnly.

"Take my word for it, Veikko, you could do much
worse than have me for a sweetheart! Even if I am
only a mouse I can love you and be true to you."

She was a dear dainty little mouse and as she sat
looking up at Veikko with her little paws under her chin
and her bright little eyes sparkling Veikko liked her
more and more.

Then she sang Veikko a pretty little song and the song

126 MIGHTY MIKKO

cheered him so much that he forgot his disappointment
at not finding a human sweetheart and as he left her to
go home he said:

"Very well, little mouse, I'll take you for my sweet-
heart!"

At that the mouse made little squeaks of delight and
she told him that she'd be true to him and wait for him
no matter how long he was in returning.

Well, the older brothers when they got home boasted
loudly about their sweethearts.

"Mine," said the oldest, "has the rosiest reddest cheeks
you ever saw!"

"And mine," the second announced, "has long yellow
hair!"

Veikko said nothing.

"What's the matter, Veikko?" the older brothers
asked him, laughing. "Has your sweetheart pretty
pointed ears or sharp white teeth ?"

You see they were still having their little joke about
foxes and wolves.

"You needn't laugh," Veikko said. "I've found a
sweetheart. She's a gentle dainty little thing gowned
in velvet."

"Gowned in velvet!" echoed the oldest brother with a
frown.

THE FOREST BRIDE 127

"Just like a princess!" the second brother sneered.

'Yes," Veikko repeated, "gowned in velvet like a
princess. And when she sits up and sings to me I'm
perfectly happy."

"Huh!" grunted the older brothers not at all pleased
that Veikko should have so grand a sweetheart.

"Well," said the old farmer after a few days, "now I
should like to know what those sweethearts of yours are
able to do. Have them each bake me a loaf of
bread so that I can see whether they're good house-

wives.'

"Mine will be able to bake bread — I'm sure of that!1'
the oldest brother declared boastfully.

"So will mine!" chorused the second brother.

Veikko was silent.

"What about the Princess?" they said with a laugh.
"Do you think the Princess can bake bread?"

"I don't know," Veikko answered truthfully. "I'll
have to ask her."

Of course he had no reason for supposing that the
little mouse could bake bread and by the time he
reached the hut in the forest he was feeling sad and
discouraged.

When he pushed open the door he found the little
mouse as before seated on the table daintily combing

128 MIGHTY MIKKO

her whiskers. At sight of Veikko she danced about
with delight.

"I'm so glad to see you!" she squeaked. "I knew
you would come back!"

Then when she noticed that he was silent she asked
him what was the matter. Veikko told her:

"My father wants each of our sweethearts to bake
him a loaf of bread. If I come home without a loaf
my brothers will laugh at me."

"You won't have to go home without a loaf!" the
little mouse said. "I can bake bread."

Veikko was much surprised at this.

"I never heard of a mouse that could bake bread!"

"Well, I can!" the little mouse insisted.

With that she began ringing a small silver bell,
tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. Instantly there was the sound
of hurrying footsteps, tiny scratchy footsteps, and hun-
dreds of mice came running into the hut.

The little Princess mouse sitting up very straight
and dignified said to them:

"Each of you go fetch me a grain of the finest
wheat."

All the mice scampered quickly away and soon re-
turned one by one, each carrying a grain of the finest
wheat. After that it was no trick at all for the Prin-

THE FOREST BRIDE 129

cess mouse to bake a beautiful loaf of wheaten bread.

The next day the three brothers presented their
father the loaves of their sweethearts' baking. The
oldest one had a loaf of rye bread.

"Very good," the farmer said. "For hardworking
people like us rye bread is good."

The loaf the second son had was made of barley.

"Barley bread is also good," the farmer said.

But when Veikko presented his loaf of beautiful
wheaten bread, his father cried out:

"What! White bread! Ah, Veikko now must have
a sweetheart of wealth!"

"Of course!" the older brothers sneered. "Didn't he
tell us she was a Princess? Say, Veikko, when a Prin-
cess wants fine white flour, how does she get it?"

Veikko answered simply:

"She rings a little silver bell and when her servants
come in she tells them to bring her grains of the finest
wheat."

At this the older brothers nearly exploded with envy
until their father had to reprove them.

"There! There!" he said. "Don't grudge the boy
his good luck! Each girl has baked the loaf she knows
how to make and each in her own way will probably
make a good wife. But before you bring them home

130 MIGHTY MIKKO

to me I want one further test of their skill in house-
wifery. Let them each send me a sample of their
weaving."

The older brothers were delighted at this for they
knew that their sweethearts were skilful weavers.

"We'll see how her ladyship fares this time!" they
said, sure in their hearts that Veikko's sweetheart, who-
ever she was, would not put them to shame with her
weaving.

Veikko, too, had serious doubts of the little mouse's
ability at the loom.

"Whoever heard of a mouse that could weave?" he
said to himself as he pushed open the door of the
forest hut.

"Oh, there you are at last!" the little mouse squeaked
joyfully.

She reached out her little paws in welcome and then
in her excitement she began dancing about on the table.

"Are you really glad to see me, little mouse?" Veikko
asked.

"Indeed I am!" the mouse declared. "Am I not your
sweetheart? I've been waiting for you and waiting,
just wishing that you would return! Does your father
want something more this time, Veikko?"

THE FOREST BRIDE 131

"Yes, and it's something I'm afraid you can't give
me, little mouse."

"Perhaps I can. Tell me what it is."

"It's a sample of your weaving. I don't believe you
can weave. I never heard of a mouse that could weave."

"Tut! Tut!" said the mouse. "Of course I can
weave! It would be a strange thing if Veikko's sweet-
heart couldn't weave!"

She rang the little silver bell, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
and instantly there was the faint scratch-scratch of a
hundred little feet as mice came running in from all
directions and sat up on their haunches awaiting their
Princess' orders.

"Go each of you," she said, "and get me a fiber of
flax, the finest there is."

The mice went scurrying off and soon they began
returning one by one each bringing a fiber of flax.
When they had spun the flax and carded it, the little
mouse wove a beautiful piece of fine linen. It was
so sheer that she was able when she folded it to put it
into an empty nutshell.

"Here, Veikko," she said, "here in this little box
is a sample of my weaving. I hope your father will
like it."

132 MIGHTY MIKKO

Veikko when he got home felt almost embarrassed
for he was sure that his sweetheart's weaving would
shame his brothers. So at first he kept the nutshell hid-
den in his pocket.

The sweetheart of the oldest brother had sent as a
sample of her weaving a square of coarse cotton.

"Not very fine," the farmer said, "but good enough."

The second brother's sample was a square of cotton
and linen mixed.

"A little better," the farmer said, nodding his head.

Then he turned to Veikko.

"And you, Veikko, has your sweetheart not given
you a sample of her weaving?"

Veikko handed his father a nutshell at sight of which
his brothers burst out laughing.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" they laughed. "Veikko's sweet-
heart gives him a nut when he asks for a sample of
her weaving."

But their laughter died as the farmer opened the
nutshell and began shaking out a great web of the
finest linen.

"Why, Veikko, my boy!" he cried, "however did your
sweetheart get threads for so fine a web?"

Veikko answered modestly:

"She rang a little silver bell and ordered her servants

THE FOREST BRIDE 133

to bring her in fibers of finest flax, They did so and
after they had spun the flax and carded it, my sweet-
heart wove the web you see."

"Wonderfull" gasped the farmer. "I have never
known such a weaver ! The other girls will be all right
for farmers' wives but Veikko's sweetheart might be
a Princess! Well," concluded the farmer, "it's time
that you all brought your sweethearts home. I want
to see them with my own eyes. Suppose you bring
them to-morrow."

"She's a good little mouse and I'm very fond of her,"
Veikko thought to himself as he went out to the forest,
"but my brothers will certainly laugh when they find
she is only a mouse! Well, I don't care if they do
laugh! She's been a good little sweetheart to me and
I'm not going to be ashamed of her!"

So when he got to the hut he told the little mouse at
once that his father wanted to see her.

The little mouse was greatly excited.

"I must go in proper style!" she said.

She rang the little silver bell and ordered her coach
and five. The coach when it came turned out to be an
empty nutshell and the five prancing steeds that were
drawing it were five black mice. The little mouse
seated herself in the coach with a coachman mouse on

134 MIGHTY MIKKO

the box in front of her and a footman mouse on the box
behind her.

"Oh, how my brothers will laugh!" thought Veikko.

But he didn't laugh. He walked beside the coach
and told the little mouse not to be frightened, that he
would take good care of her. His father, he told her,
was a gentle old man and would be kind to her.

When they left the forest they came to a river which
was spanned by a foot bridge. Just as Veikko and
the nutshell coach had reached the middle of the bridge,
a man met them coming from the opposite direction.

"Mercy me!" the man exclaimed as he caught sight
of the strange little coach that was rolling along beside
Veikko. "What's that?"

He stooped down and looked and then with a loud
laugh he put out his foot and pushed the coach, the
little mouse, her servants, and her five prancing steeds
— all off the bridge and into the water below.

"What have you done! What have you done!"
Veikko cried. "You've drowned my poor little sweet-
heart!"

The man thinking Veikko was crazy hurried away.

Veikko with tears in his eyes looked down into the
water.

"You poor little mouse!" he said. "How sorry I am

She beckoned to Veikko

THE FOREST BRIDE 137

that you are drowned! You were a faithful loving
sweetheart and now that you are gone I know how
much I loved you!"

As he spoke he saw a beautiful coach of gold drawn
by five glossy horses go up the far bank of the river.
A coachman in gold lace held the reins and a footman
in pointed cap sat up stiffly behind. The most beau-
tiful girl in the world was seated in the coach. Her
skin was as red as a berry and as white as snow, her
long golden hair gleamed with jewels, and she was
dressed in pearly velvet. She beckoned to Veikko and
when he came close she said :

"Won't you come sit beside me?"

"Me? Me?" Veikko stammered, too dazed to think.

The beautiful creature smiled.

"You were not ashamed to have me for a sweet-
heart when I was a mouse," she said, "and surely now
that I am a Princess again you won't desert me!"

"A mouse!" Veikko gasped. "Were you the little
mouse?"

The Princess nodded.

"Yes, I was the little mouse under an evil enchant-
ment which could never have been broken if you had
not taken me for a sweetheart and if another human be-
ing had not drowned me. Now the enchantment is

138 MIGHTY MIKKO

broken forever. So come, we will go to your father
and after he has given us his blessing we will get mar-
ried and go home to my kingdom."

And that's exactly what they did. They drove at
once to the farmer's house and when Veikko's father
and his brothers and his brothers' sweethearts saw the
Princess* coach stopping at their gate they all came
out bowing and scraping to see what such grand folk
could want of them.

"Father!" Veikko cried, "don't you know me?"

The farmer stopped bowing long enough to look up.

"Why, bless my soul!" he cried, "it's our Veikko!"

'Yes, father, I'm Veikko and this is the Princess
that I'm going to marry!"

"A Princess, did you say, Veikko? Mercy me,
where did my boy find a Princess?"

"Out in the forest where my tree pointed."

"Well, well, well," the farmer said, "where your
tree pointed! I've always heard that was a good way
to find a bride."

The older brothers shook their heads gloomily and
muttered :

"Just our luck ! If only our trees had pointed to the
forest we, too, should have found princesses instead of
plain country wenches 1"

THE FOREST BRIDE 189

But they were wrong: it wasn't because his tree
pointed to the forest that Veikko got the Princess, it
was because he was so simple and good that he was
kind even to a little mouse.

Well, after they had got the farmer's blessing they
rode home to the Princess' kingdom and were married.
And they were happy as they should have been for
they were good and true to each other and they loved
each other dearly.

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE

The Story of Helli and the Little Locked Box

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE

There was once an old couple who
lived with their married son and his
wife. The son's name was Helli. He
was a dutiful son but his wife was a
scold. She was always finding fault
with the old people and with her hus-
band and for that matter with everybody else as well.
One morning when she saw her husband taking out
his bow and arrows she said:
"Where are you going now?"
"I'm going hunting," he told her.
"Isn't that just like you!" she cried. "You're going
off to have a good time hunting and you don't give a
thought to me who have to stay home alone with two
stupid old people!"

"If I didn't go hunting," Helli said, "and shoot
something, we'd have nothing to put in the pot for
dinner and then you would have reason to scold."

At that the woman burst into tears.

144 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Of course, as usual blame me! Whatever happens
it's my fault!"

Poor Helli hurried off, hoping that by the time he
returned his wife would be in a calmer state of mind.
He had small success with his hunting. He shot arrow
after arrow but always missed his mark. Then when
he had only one arrow left he saw a Grouse standing
in some brushwood so near that there was little likeli-
hood of his missing it.

He took good aim but before he could fire the Grouse
said:

"Don't shoot me, brother! Take me home alive."

Helli paused, then he shook his head.

"I've got to shoot you for we've nothing to put in
the pot for dinner."

Again he aimed his arrow and again the Grouse said :

"Don't shoot me, brother! Take me home alive."

For the second time Helli paused.

"I'd like to spare you," he said, "but what would my
wife say if I came home empty-handed?"

He took aim again and a third time the Grouse said;

"Don't shoot me, brother! Take me home alive."

At that Helli dropped his arrow.

"I don't care what she says! I can't shoot a crea>
ture that begs so pitifully for its life! Very well, Mi.

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE 145

Grouse, I'll do as you say: I'll take you home alive.
But don't blame me if my wife wrings your neck."

He took the Grouse up in his arms and started
homewards.

"Feed me for a year," the Grouse said, "and I'll
reward you."

When they reached home and Helli's wife saw the
Grouse, she cried out petulantly:

"Is that all you've got and out hunting all morning!
That won't be dinner enough for four!"

"This Grouse isn't to be killed," Helli announced.
"I'm going to keep it for a year and feed it."

"It won't take much to feed a Grouse," the old man
remarked.

But the wife flew into a passion.

"What! Feed a useless bird when there isn't enough
to feed your own flesh and blood!"

But Helli was firm and despite her threats his wife
did not dare to maltreat the Grouse.

At the end of a year the Grouse grew a copper
feather in its tail which it dropped in the dooryard.
Then it disappeared.

"Ha!" laughed Helli's wrife. "A copper feather!
That's your reward for feeding that thankless bird a
whole year! And now it's escaped!"

146 MIGHTY MIKKO

But the next day the Grouse returned.

'Teed me for another year," it said to Helli, "and
I'll reward you."

His wife raised an awful to-do over this, but Helli
was firm and for another year he fed and petted the
Grouse.

At the end of the second year the Grouse grew a
silver feather in its tail which it dropped in the door-
yard. Then it disappeared.

"One silver feather!" Helli's wife cried. "So that's
all you get for feeding that thankless bird a whole
year! And now it's escaped!"

But it hadn't. It returned the very next day.

"Feed me for another year," it said to Helli, "and
I'll reward you."

At the end of the third year the Grouse grew a golden
feather in its tail and when it dropped that in the door-
yard the scolding wife hadn't so much to say, for a
golden feather was after all pretty good pay for a
few handfuls of grain.

For a day the Grouse disappeared and then when
it returned it said to Helli:

"Get on my back and I'll reward you."

Helli did so and the Grouse, rising high in the air,
flew far away. On, on it flew until it reached the broad

On it "flew until it reached the broad Ocean

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE 149

Ocean. Over the Ocean it flew until Helli could see
nothing but water in whatever direction he looked.

"Ha!" he said to himself with a shudder, "I hope
I can hold on!"

As he spoke, the Grouse slipped from beneath him
and he fell down, down, down. However, before he
touched water the Grouse swooped under him and
caught him up again high into the air. He had this
same terrible experience a second time and a third time
and each time he thought his last moment had arrived.

"Now," the Grouse told him, "y°u know what my
feelings were when you threatened three times to shoot
me with your arrow."

'You have taught me a lesson," Helli said.

After that the Grouse flew on and on. At last it
said :

"Look straight ahead, master, and tell me what you

see.'

Helli shaded his eyes and looked.

"Far, far ahead I see what looks like a copper
column."

"Good!" the Grouse said. "That is the home of my
oldest sister. She will be overjoyed to see us and
when she hears how you have spared my life she will
want to make you a present and will offer you various

150 MIGHTY MIKKO

things. Take my advice and tell her that the only
thing you want is her little locked box the key to which
is lost. If she won't give you that, accept nothing."

The Grouse's oldest sister received them most hos-
pitably and when she had heard their story at once
offered Helli anything he might like from among her
treasures.

"Then give me your little locked box the key to which
is lost," Helli said.

The oldest sister shook her head.

"My little locked box! Who told you about that?
I'm sorry, but I cannot give you that! Take anything
else!"

"No," Helli said, "that or nothing!"

When the oldest sister could not be prevailed upon
to give away her little locked box, the Grouse had Helli
mount his back once more and off they flew.

"We'll visit my second sister now," he said. "If she
offers you a present, ask her for her little locked box
without a key and accept nothing else."

On, on they flew until the oldest sister's castle was
far behind.

"Look, master," the Grouse said, "look straight ahead
and tell me what you see."

Helli shaded his eyes and looked.

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE 151

"Far ahead I see something that is like a silver
cloud."

"That," said the Grouse, "is the silver castle of my
second sister."

At the silver castle the second sister received them
with joy and when she heard who Helli was at once de-
clared that she wanted to show him her gratitude by
making him a gift.

"Ask from me what you will," she said, "and you
shall have it."

But when he asked for her little locked box without
a key, she cried out:

"No! No! Not that! Anything else!"

"But I don't want anything else!" Helli said.

When the Grouse saw that his second sister was not
to be parted from her little locked box, he bade Helli
mount his back and off they flew again.

"We'll go to my youngest sister this time," he
said. "If she offers you a present, ask for the same
thing."

On, on they flew until the silver castle was lost to
view.

"Now, master, look ahead and tell me what you

see."

Helli shaded his eyes and looked.

152 MIGHTY MIKKO

"I seem to see a golden haze like the sun behind a
cloud."

"That is the golden castle of my youngest sister."

They arrived and the youngest sister threw her arms
about the Grouse for she loved him dearly and had not
seen him for a long time.

"Welcome, brother!" she said. "And welcome also
to you, Helli!"

Then she offered Helli a present and when he asked
for her little locked box without a key she gave it to
him at once.

"It is my most precious possession," she said, "but
you may have it for you spared my dear brother's life
when you might have taken it."

After they had rested and feasted they bade the
youngest sister farewell and Helli with his precious box
held tightly in one hand mounted the Grouse's back
and off they flew towards home.

"Be careful of the box," the Grouse said, "and don't
let it out of your hands until we reach some beautiful
spot where you'd like always to live."

They passed high mountains and wooded lakes and
fertile valleys.

"Shall we stop here?" the Grouse asked. "Or here?
Or here?"

THE ENCHANTED GROUSE 153

But always Helli said:

"No, not here."

At last they reached home and the Grouse told Helli
that now they must part forever.

"By sparing my life three times," the Grouse said,
"and then feeding me for three years you have broken
the enchantment that bound me and now I shall not
have to go about any longer as a grouse but shall be
able to resume my natural shape. Farewell, Helli, and
when you find the spot where you think you would like
always to live, drop the box and you will find you have
a treasure that will more than reward you for your
kindness to me."

The Grouse disappeared and Helli said to himself:

"Where do I want to live always but right here at
home with my dear old father and mother and my wife
who is my wife even if she does scold me sometimes!"

So there at home after they all had supper together,
he dropped the box on the floor. It broke and out of
it arose a beautiful castle with servants and riches and
everything that Helli had always wanted and never had.
And Helli and his old father and mother and his wife
lived in it and were happy. And gradually his wife got
over her habit of scolding for when you're happy you
haven't anything to scold about.

THE TERRIBLE OLLI

The Story of an Honest Finn and a Wicked Troll

THE TERRIBLE OLLI

There was once a wicked rich old
Troll who lived on a Mountain that
sloped down to a Bay. A decent Finn,
a farmer, lived on the opposite side
of the Bay. The farmer had three
sons. When the boys had reached
manhood he said to them one day:

"I should think it would shame you three strong
youths that that wicked old Troll over there should
live on year after year and no one trouble him. We
work hard like honest Finns and are as poor at the
end of the year as at the beginning. That old Troll
with all his wickedness grows richer and richer. I tell
you, if you boys had any real spirit you'd take his
riches from him and drive him away!"

His youngest son, whose name was Olli, at once
cried out:

"Very well, father, I will!"

But the two older sons, offended at Olli's promptness,
declared :

157

158 MIGHTY MIKKO

'You'll do no such thing! Don't forget your place
in the family! You're the youngest and we're not go-
ing to let you push us aside. Now, father, we two will
go across the Bay and rout out that old Troll. Olli
may come with us if he likes and watch us while we
do it."

Olli laughed and said: "All right!" for he was used
to his brothers treating him like a baby.

So in a few days the three brothers walked around
the Bay and up the Mountain and presented themselves
at the Troll's house. The Troll and his old wife were
both at home. They received the brothers with great
civility.

'You're the sons of the Finn who lives across the
Bay, aren't you?" the Troll said. "I've watched you
boys grow up. I am certainly glad to see you for I
have three daughters who need husbands. Marry my
daughters and you'll inherit my riches."

The old Troll made this offer in order to get the
young men into his power.

"Be careful!" Olli whispered.

But the brothers were too delighted at the prospect
of inheriting the Troll's riches so easily to pay any
heed to Olli's warning. Instead they accepted the
Troll's offer at once.

THE TERRIBLE OLLI 159

Well, the old Troll's wife made them a fine supper
and after supper the Troll sent them to bed with his
three daughters. But first he put red caps on the
three youths and white caps on the three Troll girls.
He made a joke about the caps.

"A red cap and a white cap in each bed!" he said.

The older brothers suspected nothing and soon fell
asleep. Olli, too, pretended to fall asleep and when
he was sure that none of the Troll girls were still awake
he got up and quietly changed the caps. He put the
white caps on himself and his brothers and the red caps
on the Troll girls. Then he crept back to bed and
waited.

Presently the old Troll came over to the beds with
a long knife in his hand. There was so little light in
the room that he couldn't see the faces of the sleepers,
but it was easy enough to distinguish the white caps
from the red caps. With three swift blows he cut off
the heads under the red caps, thinking of course they
were the heads of the three Finnish youths. Then he
went back to bed with the old Troll wife and Olli could
hear them both chuckling and laughing. After a time
they went soundly to sleep as Olli could tell from their
deep regular breathing and their loud snores.

Olli now roused his brothers and told them what had

160 MIGHTY MIKKO

happened and the three of them slipped quietly out of
the Troll house and hurried home to their father on
the other side of the Bay.

After that the older brothers no longer talked of de-
spoiling the Troll. They didn't care to try another
encounter with him.

"He might have cut our heads off!" they said, shud-
dering to think of the awful risk they had run.

Olli laughed at them.

"Come on!" he kept saying to them day after day.
"Let's go across the Bay to the Troll's!"

"We'll do no such thing!" they told him. "And you
wouldn't suggest it either if you weren't so young and
foolish!"

"Well," Olli announced at last, "if you won't come
with me I'm going alone. I've heard that the Troll has
a horse with hairs of gold and silver. I've decided I
want that horse."

"Olli," his father said, "I don't believe you ought
to go. You know what your brothers say. That old
Troll is an awfully sly one!"

But Olli only laughed.

"Good-by!" he called back as he waved his hand.
"When you see me again I'll be riding the Troll's
horse 1"

OUi and the Troll's horse

THE TERRIBLE OLLI 163

The Troll wasn't at home but the old Troll wife was
there. When she saw Olli she thought to herself:

"Mercy me, here's that Finnish boy again, the one
that changed the caps! What shall I do? I must keep
him here on some pretext or other until the Troll comes
home!"

So she pretended to be very glad to see him.

"Why, Olli," she said, "is that you? Come right in!"

She talked to him as long as she could and when she
could think of nothing more to say she asked him
would he take the horse and water it at the Lake.

"That will keep him busy," she thought to herself,
"and long before he gets back from the Lake the Troll
will be here."

But Olli, instead of leading the horse down to the
Lake, jumped on its back and galloped away. By the
time the Troll reached home, he was safely on the
other side of the Bay.

When the Troll heard from the old Troll wife what
had happened, he went down to the shore and hallooed
across the Bay:

"Olli! Oh, Olli, are you there?"

Olli made a trumpet of his hands and called back:
'Yes, I'm here! What do you want?"

"Olli, have you got my horse?"

164 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Yes, I've got your horse but it's my horse now!"

"Olli! Olli!" his father cried. "You mustn't talk
that way to the Troll! You'll make him angry!"

And his brothers looking with envy at the horse with
gold and silver hairs warned him sourly :

"You better be careful, young man, or the Troll will
get you yet!"

A few days later Olli announced:

"I think I'll go over and get the Troll's money-bag."

His father tried to dissuade him.

"Don't be foolhardy, Olli! Your brothers say you
had better not go to the Troll's house again."

But Olli only laughed and started gaily off as though
he hadn't a fear in the world.

Again he found the old Troll wife alone.

"Mercy me!" she thought to herself as she saw him
coming, "here is that terrible Olli again! Whatever
shall I do? I mustn't let him off this time before the
Troll gets back! I must keep him right here with me
in the house."

So when he came in she pretended that she was tired
and that her back ached and she asked him would he
watch the bread in the oven while she rested a few mo-
ments on the bed.

"Certainly I will," Olli said.

THE TERRIBLE OLLI 165

So the old Troll wife lay down on the bed and Olli
sat quietly in front of the oven. The Troll wife really
was tired and before she knew it she fell asleep.

"Ha!" thought Olli, "here's my chance!"

Without disturbing the Troll wife he reached under
the bed, pulled out the big money-bag full of silver
pieces, threw it over his shoulder, and hurried home.

He was measuring the money when he heard the
Troll hallooing across to him:

"Olli! Oh, Olli, are you there?"

"Yes," Olli shouted back, "I'm here! What do you
want?"

"Olli, have you got my money-bag?"

'Yes, I've got your money-bag but it's my money-
bag now!"

A few days later Olli said:

"Do you know, the Troll has a beautiful coverlet
woven of silk and gold. I think I'll go over and get it."

His father as usual protested but Olli laughed at
him merrily and went. He took with him an auger and
a can of water. He hid until it was dark, then climbed
the roof of the Troll's house and bored a hole right over
the bed. When the Troll and his wife went to sleep
he sprinkled some water on the coverlet and on their
faces.

166 MIGHTY MIKKO

The Troll woke with a start.

"I'm wet!" he said, "and the bed's wet, too!"

The old Troll wife got up to change the covers.

"The roof must be leaking," she said. "It never
leaked before. I suppose it was that last wind."

She threw the wet coverlet up over the rafters to
dry and put other covers on the bed.

When she and the Troll were again asleep, Olli made
the hole a little bigger, reached in his hand, and got
the coverlet from the rafters.

The next morning the Troll hallooed across the Bay :

"Olli! Oh, OUi, are you there?"

"Yes," Ollie shouted back, "I'm here! What do you
want?"

"Have you got my coverlet woven of silk and gold?"

;'Yes," Olli told him, "I've got your coverlet but it's
my coverlet now!"

A few days later Olli said:

"There's still one thing in the Troll's house that I
think I ought to get. It's a golden bell. If I get that
golden bell then there will be nothing left that had
better belong to an honest Finn."

So he went again to the Troll's house taking with
him a saw and an auger. He hid until night and, when
the Troll and his wife were asleep, he cut a hole through

THE TERRIBLE OLLI 167

the side of the house through which he reached in his
hand to get the bell. At the touch of his hand the bell
tinkled and woke the Troll. The Troll jumped out of
bed and grabbed (Dili's hand.

"Ha! Ha!" he cried. "I've got you now and this
time you won't get away!"

Olli didn't try to get away. He made no resistance
while the Troll dragged him into the house.

"We'll eat him— that's what we'll do!" the Troll said
to his wife. "Heat the oven at once and we'll roast
him!"

So the Troll wife built a roaring fire in the oven.

"He'll make a fine roast!" the Troll said, pinching
(Dili's arms and legs. "I think we ought to invite the
other Troll folk to come and help us eat him up. Sup-
pose I just go over the Mountain and gather them in.
You can manage here without me. As soon as the oven
is well heated just take Olli and slip him in and close
the door and by the time we come he'll be done."

"Very well," the Troll wife said, "but don't be too
long! He's young and tender and will roast
quickly!"

So the Troll went out to invite to the feast the Troll
folk who lived on the other side of the Mountain and
Olli was left alone with the Troll wife.

168 MIGHTY MIKKO

When the oven was well heated she raked out the
coals and said to Olli:

"Now then, my boy, sit down in front of the oven
with your back to the opening and I'll push you in
nicely."

Olli pretended he didn't quite understand. He sat
down first one way and then another, spreading himself
out so large that he was too big for the oven door.

"Not that way !" the Troll wife kept saying. "Hunch
up little, straight in front of the door!"

'You show me how," Olli begged.

So the old Troll wife sat down before the oven
directly in front of the opening, and she hunched her-
self up very compactly with her chin on her knees and
her arms around her legs.

"Oh, that way!" Olli said, "so that you can just take
hold of me and push me in and shut the door!"

And as he spoke he took hold of her and pushed her
in and slammed the door! And that was the end of
the old Troll wife!

Olli let her roast in the oven until she was done to
a turn. Then he took her out and put her on the table
all ready for the feast.

Then he filled a sack with straw and dressed the sack
up in some of the old Troll wife's clothes. He threw

THE TERRIBLE OLLI 169

the dressed up sack on the bed and, just to glance at
it, you'd suppose it was the Troll wife asleep.

Then Olli took the golden bell and went home.

Well, presently the Troll and all the Troll folk from
over the Mountain came trooping in.

"Yum! Yum! It certainly smells good!" they said
as they got the first whiff from the big roast on the
table.

"See!" the Troll said, pointing to the bed. "The old
woman's asleep! Well, let her sleep! She's tired!
We'll just sit down without her!"

So they set to and feasted and feasted.

"Ha! Ha!" said the Troll. "This is the way to
serve a troublesome young Finn!"

Just then his knife struck something hard and he
looked down to see what it was.

"Mercy me!" he cried, "if here isn't one of the old
woman's beads! What can that mean? You don't sup-
pose the roast is not Olli after all but the old woman!
No! No! It can't be!"

He got up and went over to the bed. Then he came
back shaking his head sadly.

"My friends," he said, "we've been eating the old
woman! However, we've eaten so much of her that I
suppose we might as well finish her!"

170 MIGHTY MIKKO

So the Troll folk sat all night feasting and drinking.

At dawn the Troll went down to the water and hal-
looed across:

"Olli! Oh, Olli, are you there?"

Olli who was safely home shouted back :

"Yes, I'm here! What do you want?"

"Have you got my golden bell?"

"Yes, I've got your golden bell but it's my golden
bell now!"

"One thing more, Olli: did you roast my old woman?"

"Your old woman?" Olli echoed. "Look! Is that
she?"

Olli pointed at the rising sun which was coming up
behind the Troll.

The Troll turned and looked. He looked straight
at the sun and then, of course, he burst!

So that was the end of him!

Well, after that no other Troll ever dared settle on
that side of the Mountain. They were all too afraid of
the Terrible Olli!

THE DEVIL'S HIDE

The Story of the Boy Who Wouldn't Lose His

Temper

THE DEVIL'S HIDE

There was once a Finnish boy who
got the best of the Devil. His name
was Erkki. Erkki had two brothers
who were, of course, older than he.
They both tried their luck with the
Devil and got the worst of it. Then
Erkki tried his luck. They were sure Erkki, too, would
be worsted, but he wasn't. Here is the whole story:
One day the oldest brother said :
"It's time for me to go out into the world and earn
my living. Do you two younger ones wait here at home
until you hear how I get on."

The younger boys agreed to this and the oldest
brother started out. He was unable to get employ-
ment until by chance he met the Devil. The Devil at
once offered him a place but on very strange terms.

"Come work for me," the Devil said, "and I promise
that you'll be comfortably housed and well fed. We'll
make this bargain: the first of us who loses his temper

173

174. MIGHTY MIKKO

will forfeit to the other enough of his own hide to sole
a pair of boots. If I lose my temper first, you may
exact from me a big patch of my hide. If you lose your
temper first, I'll exact the same from you."

The oldest brother agreed to this and the Devil at
once took him home and set him to work.

"Take this ax," he said, "and go out behind the
house and chop me some firewood."

The oldest brother took the ax and went out to the
woodpile.

"Chopping wood is easy enough," he thought to
himself.

But at the first blow he found that the ax had no
edge. Try as he would he couldn't cut a single log.

"I'd be a fool to stay here and waste my time with
such an ax!" he cried.

So he threw down the ax and ran away thinking
to escape the Devil and get work somewhere else. But
the Devil had no intention of letting him escape. He
ran after him, overtook him, and asked him what he
meant leaving thus without notice.

"I don't want to work for you!" the oldest brother
cried, petulantly.

"Very well," the Devil said, "but don't lose your
temper about it."

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 175

"I will so lose my temper!" the oldest brother
declared. "The idea — expecting me to cut wood with
such an ax!"

"Well," the Devil remarked, "since you insist on
losing your temper, }Tou'll have to forfeit me enough of
your hide to sole a pair of boots 1 That was our
bargain."

The oldest brother howled and protested but to no
purpose. The Devil was firm. He took out a long
knife and slit off enough of the oldest brother's hide
to sole a pair of big boots.

"Now then, my boy," he said, "now you may go."

The oldest brother went limping home complaining
bitterly at the hard fate that had befallen him.

"I'm tired and sick," he told his brothers, "and I'm
going to stay home and rest. One of you will have to
go out and get work."

The second brother at once said that he'd be delighted
to try his luck in the world. So he started out and he
had exactly the same experience. At first he could get
no work, then he met the Devil and the Devil made
exactly the same bargain with him that he had made
with the oldest brother. He took the second brother
home with him, gave him the same dull ax, and sent him
out to the woodpile. After the first stroke the second

176 MIGHTY MIKKO

brother threw down the ax in disgust and tried to run
off and the Devil, of course, wouldn't let him go until
he, too, had submitted to the loss of a great patch of
hide. So it was no time at all before the second brother
came limping home complaining bitterly at fate.

"What ails you two?" Erkki said.

"You go out into the cruel world and hunt work,"
they told him, "and you'll find out soon enough what
ails us! And when you do find out you needn't come
limping home expecting sympathy from us for you
won't get it!"

So the very next day Erkki started out, leaving his
brothers at home nursing their sore backs and their
injured feelings.

Well, Erkki had exactly the same experience. At
first he could get work nowhere, then later he met the
Devil and went into his employ on exactly the same
terms as his brothers.

The Devil handed him the same dull ax and sent him
out to the woodpile. At the first blow Erkld knew that
the ax had lost its edge and would never cut a single
log. But instead of being discouraged and losing his
temper, he only laughed.

"I suppose the Devil thinks I'll lose my hide over a
trifle like this!" he said. "Well, I just won't!"

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 177

He dropped the ax and, going over to the woodpile,
began pulling it down. Under all the logs he found
the Devil's cat. It was an evil looking creature with
a gray head.

"Ha!" thought Erkki, "I bet anything you've got
something to do with this!"

He raised the dull ax and with one blow cut off the
evil creature's head. Sure enough the ax instantly re-
covered its edge and after that Erkki had no trouble
at all in chopping as much firewood as the Devil wanted.

That night at supper the Devil said:

"Well, Erkki, did you finish the work I gave you?"

"Yes, master, I've chopped all that wood."

The Devil was surprised.

"Really?"

'Yes, master. You can go out and see for yourself."

"Then you found something in the woodpile, didn't
you?"

"Nothing but an awful looking old cat."

The Devil started.

"Did you do anything to that cat?"

"I only chopped its head off and threw it away."

"What!" the Devil cried angrily. "Didn't you know
that was my cat!"

"There now, master," Erkki said soothingly, "you're

178 MIGHTY MIKKO

not going to lose your temper over a little thing like a
dead cat, are you? Don't forget our bargain!"

The Devil swallowed his anger and murmured:

"No, I'm not going to lose my temper but I must say
that was no way to treat my cat."

The next day the Devil ordered Erkki to go out to
the forest and bring home some logs on the ox sledge.

"My black dog will go with you," he said, "and as
you come home you're to take exactly the same course
the dog takes."

Well, Erkki went out to the forest and loaded the
ox sledge with logs and then drove the oxen home fol-
lowing the Devil's black dog. As they reached the
Devil's house the black dog jumped through a hole in
the gate.

"I must follow master's orders," Erkki said to him-
self.

So he cut up the oxen into small pieces and put them
through the same hole in the gate; he chopped up the
logs and pitched them through the hole; and he broke
up the sledge into pieces small enough to follow the
oxen and the logs. Then he crept through the hole
himself.

That night at supper the Devil said:

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 179

"Well, Erkki, did you come home the way I told
you?"

'Yes, master, I followed the black dog."

"What!" the Devil cried. "Do you mean to say you
brought the oxen and the sledge and the logs through
the hole in the gate?"

'Yes, master, that's what I did."

"But you couldn't!" the Devil declared.

"Well, master," Erkki said, "just go out and see."

The Devil went outside and when he saw the method
by which Erkki had carried out his orders he was furi-
ous. But Erkki quieted him by saying:

'There now, master, you're not going to lose your
temper over a trifling matter like this, are you? Re-
member our bargain!"

"N-n-no," the Devil said, again swallowing his anger,
"I'm not going to lose my temper, but I want you to
understand, Erkki, that I think you've acted very badly
in this!"

All that evening the Devil fumed and fussed about
Erkki.

"We've got to get rid of that boy! That's all there
is about it!" he said to his wife.

Of course whenever Erkki was in sight the Devil

180 MIGHTY MIKKO

tried to smile and look pleasant, but as soon as Erkki
was gone he went back at once to his grievance. He
declared emphatically:

"There's no living in peace and comfort with such a
boy around!"

"Well," his wife said, "if you feel that way about it,
why don't you kill him to-night when he's asleep ? We
could throw his body into the lake and no one be the

wiser.'

"That's a fine idea!" the Devil said. "Wake me up
some time after midnight and I'll do it!"

Now Erkki overheard this little plan, so that night
he kept awake. When he knew from their snoring that
the Devil and his wife were sound asleep, he slipped
over to their bed, quietly lifted the Devil's wife in his
arms, and without awakening her placed her gently in
his own bed. Then he put on some of her clothes and
laid himself down beside the Devil in the wife's place.

Presently he nudged the Devil awake.

"What do you want?" the Devil mumbled.

"Sst!" Erkki whispered. "Isn't it time we got up
and killed Erkki?"

;'Yes," the Devil answered, "it is. Come along."

They got up quietly and the Devil reached down a
great sword from the wall. Then they crept over to

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 181

Erkki's bed and the Devil with one blow cut off the
head of the person who was lying there asleep.

"Now," he said, "we'll just carry out the bed and all
and dump it in the lake."

So Erkki took one end of the bed and the Devil the
other and, stumbling and slipping in the darkness, they
carried it down to the lake and pitched it in.

"That's a good job done!" the Devil said with a
laugh.

Then they went back to bed together and the Devil
fell instantly asleep.

The next morning when he got up for breakfast,
there was Erkki stirring the porridge.

"How — did you get here?" the Devil asked. "I mean
— I mean where is my wife ?"

"Your wife? Don't you remember," Erkki said, "you
cut off her head last night and then wre threw her into
the lake, bed and all! But no one will be the wiser!"

"W-wh-what!" the Devil cried, and he was about
to fly into an awful rage when Erkki restrained him
by saying:

"There now, master, you're not going to lose your
temper over a little thing like a wife, are you? Remem-
ber our bargain!"

So the Devil was forced again to swallow his anger.

182 MIGHTY MIKKO

"No, I'm not going to lose my temper," he said, "but
I tell you frankly, Erkki, I don't think that was a nice
trick for you to play on me!"

Well, the Devil felt lonely not having a wife about
the house, so in a few days he decided to go off wooing
for a new one.

"And, Erkki," he said, "I expect you to keep busy
while I'm gone. Here's a keg of red paint. Now get
to work and have the house all blazing red by the time
I get back."

"All blazing red," Erkki repeated. "Very well, mas-
ter, trust me to have it all blazing red by the time you
get back!"

As soon as the Devil was gone, Erkki set the house
a-fire and in a short time the whole sky was lighted up
with the red glow of the flames. In great fright the
Devil hurried back and got there in time to see the
house one mass of fire.

'You see, master," Erkki said, "I've done as you
told me. It looks very pretty, doe§n't it? all blazing
red!"

The Devil almost choked with rage.

'You — you — " he began, but Erkki restrained him
by saying:

"There now, master, you're not going to lose your

From the bones of the cattle he laid three bridges

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 185

temper over a little thing like a house a-fire, are you?
Remember our bargain!"

The Devil swallowed hard and said:

"N — no, I'm not going to lose my temper, but I
must say, Erkki, that I'm very much annoyed with
you!"

The next day the Devil wanted to go a-wooing again
and before he started he said to Erkki:

"Now, no nonsense this time! While I'm gone
you're to build three bridges over the lake, but they're
not to be built of wood or stone or iron or earth. Do
you understand?"

Erkki pretended to be frightened.

"That's a pretty hard task you've given me, master!"

"Hard or easy, see that you get it done!" the Devil
said.

Erkki waited until the Devil was gone, then he went
out to the field and slaughtered all the Devil's cattle.
From the bones of the cattle he laid three bridges across
the lake, using the skulls for one bridge, the ribs for
another, and the legs and the hoofs for the third. Then
when the Devil got back, Erkki met him and pointing
to the bridges said:

"See, master, there they are, three bridges put to-
gether without stick, stone, iron, or bit of earth!"

186 MIGHTY MIKKO

When the Devil found out that all his cattle had
been slaughtered to give bones for the bridges, he was
ready to kill Erkki, but Erkki quieted him by saying:

"There now, master, you're not going to lose your
temper over a little thing like the slaughter of a few
cattle, are you? Remember our bargain!"

So again the Devil had to swallow his anger.

"No," he said, "I'm not going to lose my temper ex-
actly but I just want to tell you, Erkki, that I don't
think you're behaving well!"

The Devil's wooing was successful and pretty soon
he brought home & new wife. The new wife didn't like
having Erkki about, so the Devil promised her he'd
kill the boy.

"I'll do it to-night," he said, "when he's asleep."

Erkki overheard this and that night he put the churn
in his bed under the covers, and where his head ordi-
narily would be he put a big round stone. Then he
himself curled up on the stove and went comfortably
to sleep.

During the night the Devil took his great sword from
the wall and went over to Erkki's bed. His first blow
hit the round stone and nicked the sword. His second
blow struck sparks.

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 187

"Mercy me!" the Devil thought, "he's got a mighty
hard head! I better strike lower!"

With the third stroke he hit the churn a mighty blow.
The hoops flew apart and the churn collapsed.

The Devil went chuckling back to bed.

"Ha!" he said boastfully to his wife, "I got him that
time!"

But the next morning when he woke up he didn't
feel like laughing for there was Erkki as lively as ever
and pretending that nothing had happened.

"What!" cried the Devil in amazement, "didn't you
feel anything strike you last night while you were
asleep?"

"Oh, I did feel a few mosquitoes brushing my cheek,"
Erkki said. "Nothing else."

"Steel doesn't touch him!" the Devil said to his wife.
"I think I'll try fire on him."

So that night the Devil told Erkki to sleep in the
threshing barn. Erkki carried his cot down to the
threshing floor and then when it was dark he shifted
it into the hay barn where he slept comfortably all night.

During the night the Devil set fire to the threshing
barn. In the early dawn Erkki carried his cot back

•

to the place of the threshing barn and in the morning

188 MIGHTY MIKKO

when the Devil came out the first thing he saw was
Erkki unharmed and peacefully sleeping among the
smoking ruins.

"Mercy me, Erkki!" he shouted, shaking him awake,
"have you been asleep all night?"

Erkki sat up and yawned.

"Yes, I've had a fine night's sleep. But I did feel
a little chilly."

"Chilly!" the Devil gasped.

After that the Devil's one thought was to get rid of
Erkki.

"That boy's getting on my nerves!" he told his wife.
"I just can't stand him much longer! What are we
going to do about him?"

They discussed one plan after another and at last
decided that the only way they'd ever get rid of him
would be to move away and leave him behind.

"I'll send him out to the forest to chop wood all
day," the Devil said, "and while he's gone we'll row
ourselves and all our belongings out to an island and
when he comes back he won't know where we've
gone."

Erkki overheard this plan and the next day when
they were sure he was safely at work in the forest he
slipped back and hid himself in the bedclothes.

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 189

Well, when they got to the island and began unpack-
ing their things there was Erkki in the bedclothes!

The Devil's new wife complained bitterly.

"If you really loved me," she said, "you'd cut off that
boy's head!"

"But I've tried to cut it off!" the Devil declared,
"and I never can do it! Plague take such a boy! I've
always known the Finns were an obstinate lot but I
must say I've never met one as bad as Erkki ! He's too
much for me!"

But the Devil's wife kept on complaining until at
last the Devil promised that he would try once again
to cut off Erkki's head.

"Very well," his wife said, "to-night when he's asleep
I'll wake you."

Well, what with the moving and everything the wife
herself was tired and as soon as she went to bed she
fell asleep. That gave Erkki just the very chance he
needed to try on the new wife the trick he had played
on the old one. Without waking her he carried her to
his bed and then laid himself down in her place beside
the Devil. Then he waked up the Devil and reminded
him that he had promised to cut off Erkki's head.

The poor old Devil got up and went over to Erkki's
bed and of course cut off the head of his new wife.

190 MIGHTY MIKKO

The next morning when he had found out what he
had done, he was perfectly furious.

"You get right out of here, Erkki!" he roared. "I
never want to see you again!"

"There now, master," Erkki said, "you're not going
to lose your temper over a little thing like a dead wife,
are you?"

"I am so going to lose my temper!" the Devil
shouted. "And what's more it isn't a little thing! I
liked this wife, I did, and I don't know where I'll get
another one I like as well! So you just clear out of
here and be quick about it, too!"

"Very well, master," Erkki said, "I'll go but not until
you pay me what you owe me."

"What I owe you !" bellowed the Devil. "What about
all you owe me for my house and my cattle and my old
wife and my dear new wife and everything!"

;< You've lost your temper," Erkki said, "and now
you've got to pay me a patch of your hide big enough
to sole a pair of boots. That was our bargain!"

The Devil roared and blustered but Erkki was firm.
He wouldn't budge a step until the Devil had allowed
him to slit a great patch of hide off his back.

That piece of the Devil's hide made the finest soles
that a pair of boots ever had. It wore for years and

THE DEVIL'S HIDE 191

years and years. In fact Erkki is still tramping around
on those same soles. The fame of them has spread over
all the land and it has got so that now people stop
Erkki on the highway to look at his wonderful boots
soled with the Devil's hide. Travelers from foreign
countries are deeply interested when they hear about
the boots and when they meet Erkki they question him
closely.

"Tell us," they beg him, "how did you get the Devil's
hide in the first place?"

Erkki always laughs and makes the same answer:

"I got it by not losing my temper!"

As for the Devil, he's never again made a bargain like
that with a Finn!

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT

The Story of a Young Man Who Respected

the Dead

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT

There was once a rich merchant
who had an only son. As he lay dying,
he said:

"Matti, my boy, my end is approach-
ing and there are two things I want to
say to you: The first is that I am
leaving you all my wealth. If you are careful you will
have enough to suffice you for life. The second thing I
have to say is to beg you never to leave this, your native
village. At your birth there was a prophecy which de-
clared that if ever you left this village you would have
to marry a woman with horns. Now that I have warned
you in time it will be your own fault if ever you have
to meet this fate."

The merchant died and Matti was left alone. He
had never before wanted to travel but now that he
knew of the fate which would overtake him if he did,
he couldn't bear the thought of remaining forever a
prisoner in his native village.

195

196 MIGHTY MIKKO

"What is the use of riches," he asked himself, "if one
can't travel over the broad world and see wonderful
sights? Besides, if it's my fate to marry a horned
woman, I don't see why sitting quietly at home is going
to save me. No! I'm going to take my chances like
a man and come and go as I like!"

So he gathered his riches together, closed the old
house where he had been born, and started out into the
bright world. He traveled many days, meeting strange
peoples and seeing strange sights. At last he settled
down in a large city and became a merchant like his
father.

One afternoon as he was out walking, he saw a
crowd of men dragging the body of a dead man in the
gutter. They were kicking and abusing the dead body
and calling it evil names.

Matti stopped them.

"What is this you are doing?" he demanded. "Don't
you know that disrespect to the dead is disrespect to
God? Give over abusing this poor dead body and
bury it decently or God will punish you!"

"Let us alone!" the men cried. "He deserves the
abuse we are giving him! When he was alive he bor-
rowed money from us all and then he died without
repaying us. Are we to have no satisfaction at all?"

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT 197

With that they resumed their abuse of the dead body.

"Wait!" Matti cried. "Tell me what the dead man
owed you and I will pay it!"

"He owed me ten ducats!" said one.

"And me a hundred!" shouted another.

"And me five hundred!"

"And me a thousand!"

"Come all of you to my house," Matti said, "and I
will pay you, but only on condition that first you hand
over the body to me and help me give it a decent burial."

The men agreed. They helped Matti bury the dead
man and then went home with him.

Each told Matti the amount the dead man owed him
and, true to his promise, Matti paid them all.

When he had paid the last man he found that he
had nothing left for himself but nine silver kopeks. The
dead man's debts had exhausted all the wealth his father
had left him.

"No matter!" Matti thought to himself. "My riches
would have done me no good if I had stood by and
allowed a poor dead man to be abused. What if I
have nothing left? I'm young and strong and I can
go out into the world and make my livelihood somehow.
I'll go home and have one last look at my native village
and then begin life anew."

198 MIGHTY MIKKO

So, dressed in shabby old clothes with nothing in
his pockets but the nine silver kopeks, Matti left the
city where people were beginning to know him as a
merchant and started back to his native village. He
was soon met by a man who addressed him respectfully
and asked to be engaged as his servant.

"My servant!" Matti repeated with a laugh. "My
dear fellow, I'm too poor to have a servant! All I have
in the world are nine silver kopeks!"

"No matter, master," the man said. "Take me any-
how. I will serve you well and I promise you will not
regret our bargain."

So Matti agreed and they walked on together. The
sun was hot and by midafternoori Matti was feeling
faint with hunger and fatigue.

"Master," the Servant said, "I will run ahead to the
next village and order the landlord at the inn to prepare
you a fine dinner. Do you come along slowly and by
the time you arrive the dinner will be ready."

"But remember," Mattie warned him, "I have no
money to pay for a fine dinner !"

"Trust me!" the Servant said and off he hurried.

At the next village he hunted out the best inn and
ordered the landlord to prepare his finest dinner without
delay. He was so particular that everything should be

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT 199

the best that the landlord supposed his master must be
some great lord.

When Matti arrived on foot, tired and travel-stained
and shabby, the landlord was amazed.

"It's fine lords we have nowadays!" he muttered
scornfully, and he wished he had not been in such
haste to cook the best food in the house. But it was
cooked and ready to serve and so, with an ill grace,
he served it.

Matti and his man ate their fill of good cabbage
soup and fish and fowl tender and juicy.

It quite enraged the landlord to see poor men with
such good appetites.

''They eat as if their pockets were lined with gold!"
he muttered angrily. "Well, let them eat while they
can for they'll lose their appetites once they see the reck-
oning!"

When they finished eating, they rested and then called
for the reckoning. It was much more than it should
have been but neither Matti nor the Servant objected.

"Like a good fellow," the Servant said, "will you
please to lend me your half peck measure."

"Like a good fellow, indeed!" the landlord muttered
to himself. "Who are you to call me a good fellow I'd
like to know!"

200 MIGHTY MIKKO

Nevertheless he went out and got the measure.

"Now, master," the Servant said, "give me three of
your nine silver kopeks."

The Servant threw the three silver kopeks into the
measure, shook the measure three times and lo! it was
filled to the brim with silver kopeks! The Servant
counted out the amount of the reckoning and handed the
rest of the money to his master. Then he and Matti
went on their way leaving the landlord gaping after
them with open mouth.

Day after day the Servant paid the reckoning in the
same way at the various inns where they stopped until
they reached at last Matti's native village and the old
house that still belonged to him.

They settled themselves there and one day the Serv-
ant said to Matti :

"Now, master, you know your fate: for having left
your native village you know you are destined to marry
a horned woman. You might as well do it at once for
you'll have to do it sooner or later."

"That is true," Mattie said, "and if I knew the where-
abouts of the horned woman who is my fate I should
marry her at once."

"In that case we'll lose no more time," the Servant
said. "The King has three daughters all of whom are

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT 201

horned. This isn't generally known but it is true. Let
us go to the palace and present your suit. The King
will give friendly ear for there are not many suitors for
daughters with horns. He will try to make you take
the oldest who has big horns and a hoarse voice. When
she sees you, she'll whisper: 'Take me! Take me!' But
do you shake your head and answer: 'No! Not this
one!' Then the King will send for his second daughter.
Her horns are not so big nor is her voice so hoarse. She,
too, will whisper you: 'Take me! Take me!' But do
you again shake your head and answer: 'No! Not this
one!' Be firm and the King will finally have to send
for his youngest daughter. Her horns are just soft
little baby horns and her voice is just a little husky.
Take her and soon all will be well."

So Matti and the Servant went to the palace and got
audience with the King.

"My master, Matti," the Servant said, address-
ing the King, "is desirous of marrying a wife with
horns."

The King was interested at once.

"As it happens I have a daughter with horns," he
said. "I'll have her come in."

He sent for his oldest daughter and presently she
appeared. Her horns were long and thick.

202 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Take me! Take me!" she whispered hoarsely as she
passed Matti.

"See what a fine girl she is!" the King said, "and
what well grown horns she has !"

But Matti shook his head.

"No, Your Majesty, I don't think I want to marry
this one."

"Of course you must follow the dictates of your
heart," the King said drily. "However, come to think
of it, my second daughter also has horns. Maybe you'd
like to consider her."

So the second daughter was called in. Her horns
were not so large as her sister's nor was her voice so
hoarse. But Matti, remembering the Servant's warn-
ing, refused her, too. The King seemed surprised and
even annoyed that Matti should refuse his daughters
so glibly, but when he found that Matti was firm
he said:

"I have got another daughter, my youngest, but, if
it's horns you're looking for, I don't believe you'll be
interested in her at all since her horns are so small and
soft that they are hardly noticeable at all. However,
as you're here, you might as well see her."

So the youngest princess was sent for and at once
Matti knew that she was the one he wanted to marry.

'She is under an evil enchantment and I am delivering her!'

THE MYSTERIOUS SERVANT 205

She wasn't as beautiful as a princess should be but
she was gentle and modest and when she passed Matti
her cheeks flushed and she wasn't able to whisper any-
thing. But Matti felt very sure that if she had
whispered her voice would have been scarcely
husky.

"This, O King," he said, "is my choice! Let me
marry your youngest daughter and I promise to be a
faithful husband to her."

The King would have preferred to marry off the
older princesses first for their horns were getting to be
very troublesome, but as they all had horns he was
afraid to refuse Matti's offer.

So after a little talk he gave Matti the youngest
and in a short time they were married.

After the wedding feast the King led the young
couple to the bridal chamber and closed the door.

Matti's Servant meantime had gone out to the woods
and cut some stout switches of birch. When the palace
was quiet and all were asleep, he crept softly into the
bridal chamber and, dragging the bride out of bed, he
beat her unmercifully.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried in pain.

Her screams woke Matti and in fright he jumped
out of bed and tried to stop the Servant.

206 MIGHTY MIKKO

''Wait!" the Servant said. "She is under an evil en-
chantment and I am delivering her!"

So he kept on beating her until he had drawn blood.
Then instantly the horns fell from her head and there
she stood a beautiful young girl released from the evil
enchantment that had disfigured her.

The Servant handed her over to her husband who fell
in love with her on sight and has loved her ever since.

"Now farewell, Matti," the Servant said. "My work
is done and you will need me no longer. You have
married a beautiful princess and the King will soon
make you his heir."

With these words the Servant disappeared and Matti
was left alone with his lovely bride.

And that was Matti's reward for having respected
the dead. God Himself in the form of the Servant had
come down and taken care of him.

FAMILIAR FACES

/ Mary, Mary, So Contrary!
II Jane, Jane, Don't Complain!
Ill Susan Walker, What a Talker!

the got to the middle of the stream

MARY, MARY, SO CONTRARY!

There was once a farmer who was
married to the most contrary wife in
the world. Her name was Maya. If
he expected Maya to say, 'Yes," she
would always say, "No," and if he
expected her to say, "No," she would
always say, "Yes." If he said the soup was too hot,
Maya would instantly insist that it was too cold. She
would do nothing that he wanted her to do, and she
always insisted on doing everything that he did not
want her to do.

Like most contrary people Maya was really very
stupid and the farmer after he had been married to her
for a few years knew exactly how to manage her.

For instance at Christmas one year he wanted to
make a big feast for his friends and neighbors. Did
he tell his wife so? Not he! Instead, a few weeks
beforehand he remarked casually:

"Christmas is coming and I suppose every one will

209

210 MIGHTY MIKKO

expect us to have fine white bread. But I don't think
we ought ito. It's too expensive. Black bread is good
enough for us."

"Black bread, indeed!" cried Maya. "Not at all!
We're going to have white bread and you needn't say
any more about it! Black bread at Christmas! To
hear you talk people would suppose we are beggars!"

The farmer pretended to be grieved and he said :

"Well, my dear, have white bread if your heart is
set on it, but I hope you don't expect to make any pies."

"Not make any pies! Just let me tell you I expect
to make all the pies I want!"

"Well, now, Maya, if we have pies I don't think we
ought to have any wine."

"No wine! I like that! Of course we'll have wine
on Christmas!"

The farmer was much pleased but, still pretending
to protest, he said :

"Well, if we spend money on wine, we better not
expect to buy any coffee."

"What! No coffee on Christmas! Who ever heard
of such a thing! Of course we'll have coffee!"

"Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you! Get a
little coffee if you like, but just enough for you and
me for I don't think we ought to have any guests."

MARY, MARY, SO CONTRARY! 211

"What! No guests on Christmas! Indeed and
you're wrong if you think we're not going to have a
houseful of guests!"

The farmer was overjoyed but, still pretending to
grumble, he said :

"If you have the house full of people, you needn't
think I'm going to sit at the head of the table, for I'm
not!"

'You are, too!" screamed his wife. "That's exactly
where you are going to sit!"

"Maya, Maya, don't get so excited! I will sit there
if you insist. But if I do you mustn't expect me to
pour the wine."

"And why not? It would be a strange thing if you
didn't pour the wine at your own table !"

"All right, all right, I'll pour it! But you mustn't
expect me to taste it beforehand."

"Of course you're going to taste it beforehand!"

This was exactly what the farmer wanted his wife
to say. So you see by pretending to oppose her at every
turn he was able to have the big Christmas party that
he wanted and he was able to feast to his heart's content
with all his friends and relatives and neighbors.

Time went by and Maya grew more and more con-
trary if such a thing were possible. Summer came and

212 MIGHTY MIKKO

the haymaking season. They were going to a distant
meadow to toss hay and had to cross an angry little
river on a footbridge made of one slender plank.

The farmer crossed in safety, then he called back to
his wife:

"Walk very carefully, Maya, for the plank is not
strong!"

"I will not walk carefully!" the wife declared.

She flung herself on the plank with all her weight
and when she got to the middle of the stream she
jumped up and down just to show her husband how
contrary she could be. Well, the plank broke with a
snap, Maya fell into the water, the current carried her
off, and she was drowned!

Her husband, seeing what had happened, ran madly
upstream shouting:

"Help! Help!"

The haymakers heard him and came running to see
what was the matter.

"My wife has fallen into the river!" he cried, "and
the current has carried her body away!"

"What ails you?" the haymakers said. "Are you
mad? If the current has carried your wife away, she's
floating downstream, not upstream!"

"Any other woman would float downstream," the

MARY, MARY, SO CONTRARY! 213

farmer said. 'Yes! But you know Maya! She's so

contrary she'd float upstream every time!"

'That's true," the haymakers said, "she would!"
So all afternoon the farmer searched upstream for

his wife's body but he never found it.

When night came he went home and had a good

supper of all the things he liked to eat which Maya

would never let him have.

They were so busy eating and drinking

JANE, JANE, DON'T COMPLAIN!

There was once a man who was poor
and lazy and he had a wife who was
even worse. Her name was Jenny.
Jenny was so lazy that it was an effort
for her to lift one foot after the other.
And in addition to her laziness she was
an everlasting eomplainer. "Oh!" she used to grunt
in the morning, "I wish we didn't have to get up!" and
"Oh!" she used to groan at night, "I wish we didn't
have to take our shoes off before going to bed!"

One day when they were both out in the forest collect-
ing faggots, Jenny said:

"I don't see why we're not rich! I don't see why
the King should live at his ease while we have to grub
for everything we get! I just hate work!"

Of course the trouble both with Jenny and her hus-
band was not that they worked but that they didn't

•/ •.

work. It was because they didn't that they had so
much time to think about it.

215

216 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Drat it all!" Jenny went on, whining, "Adam and
Eve are to blame for all our misfortunes! If they
hadn't disobeyed God's commandment and eaten that
apple, we'd all be living in the Garden of Eden to this
day! It's all their fault that we have to moil and toil
and hurry and scurry!"

'Yes," the man agreed, "it is, especially Eve's. Of
course Adam was to blame, too, for he should have
controlled his wife better. But Eve was the more to
blame. If I had been Adam I shouldn't have allowed
her to touch the apple in the first place."

Now it happened that the King who was out hunting
that day overheard this conversation.

"Ha!" he thought to himself, "I've a great mind to
teach these two people a lesson!"

He pushed aside the bushes that had hidden him from
them and said:

"Good day to you both! I have just heard your
complaints and I, too, think it very hard that you should
be poor while others are rich. I tell you what I'll do:
I'll take you both home with me to the castle and main-
tain you in ease and luxury provided you obey me in
just one thing."

Jenny and her husband agreed to this eagerly and
just as they were the King took them home with him to

JANE, JANE, DON'T COMPLAIN! 217

the castle. He lodged them in a room with golden
furniture, he gave them fine clothes to wear, and for
food he had them served the choicest delicacies in the
world.

As they sat eating their first royal meal, he came in
to them carrying in his hands a covered dish of silver.
He put the dish down in the center of the table.

"Now, my friends," he said, "I promised to maintain
you in this ease and luxury provided you obeyed me in
one thing. You see this silver dish. I forbid you ever
to lift the cover. If you disobey me, that moment I
shall take from you your fine clothes and send you back
to your poverty and misery."

With that the King left them and they stuffed them-
selves to their hearts' content with the delicate foods
set before them.

They were so busy, eating and drinking -and admiring
themselves in their fine clothes, that for the first day
they didn't give the covered dish a. thought. The
second day the wife noticed it and said:

"That's the thing we're not to touch. Well, for my
part I don't want to touch it. I don't want to do any-
thing but eat and sleep and try on my pretty new
clothes."

By the third day they had eaten so much and so

218 MIGHTY MIKKO

steadily that they were no longer hungry and when they
lay down on the big soft bed they no longer fell instantly
asleep.

"Dear me," Jenny began whining, "I don't know
what's the matter with this food! It doesn't taste as
good as it used to! Maybe the cook has grown care-
less! I think we ought to complain to the King. I'm
beginning to feel very uncomfortable and I haven't
any appetite at all! I wonder what's in that covered
dish. Perhaps it's something to eat, something perfect-
ly delicious! I've half a mind to lift the cover and

see."

"Now just you leave that silver dish alone!" the man
growled. He, too, had been eating too much and was
feeling peevish. "Don't you remember what the King
said?"

"Pooh!" cried Jenny. "What do I care what the
King said! I think he was just poking fun at us tell-
ing us we mustn't lift the cover of that silver dish.
After all a dish is a dish and it's no crime to lift a
cover even if it is made of silver!"

With that Jenny jumped up and before her husband
could stop her she lifted the forbidden cover. Instantly
a little white mouse hopped out of the silver dish and
scurried away.

JANE, JANE, DON'T COMPLAIN! 219

"Oh!" Jenny screamed, dropping the cover with a
great clatter.

The King who was in an adjoining chamber heard
the noise and came in.

"So!" he said, "you have done the one thing that I
told you not to do! You haven't been here three days
and although you've had everything that heart could
wish for yet you couldn't obey me in this one little
matter!"

'Your Majesty," the man said, "it was my wife who
did it, not I."

"No matter," the King said, "you, too, are to blame.
If you had restrained her it wouldn't have happened."

Then he called his servants and had them strip off
the fine clothes and dress the couple again in their old
rags.

"Now," he said as he drove them from the castle gates,
"never again blame Adam and Eve for the misfortunes
which you bring upon yourselves!"

They carried home tht treasure on their backs

Ill

SUSAN WALKER, WHAT A TALKER!

There was once a man whose wife
was an awful talker. Her name was
Susanna. No matter how important it
was to keep a matter quiet, if Susanna
knew about it, she just had to talk.
She was always running to the neigh-
bors and exclaiming:

"Oh, my dear, have you heard so and so?"
Her husband was an industrious fellow. He set
nets in the river, he snared birds in the forest, and he
worked at any odd jobs that came along.

It happened one day while he was out in the forest
that he found a buried treasure.

"Ah!" he thought to himself, "now I can buy a little
farm that will keep me and Susanna comfortable the
rest of our days!"

He started home at once to tell his wife the good
fortune that had befallen them. He had almost reached
home when he stopped, suddenly realizing that the first

thing Susanna would do would be to spread the news

221

222 MIGHTY MIKKO

broadcast throughout the village. Then of course the
government would get wind of his find and presently
officers of the law would come and confiscate the entire
treasure.

"That would never do," he told himself. "I must
think out some plan whereby I can let Susanna know
about the treasure without risking the loss of it."

He puzzled over the matter for a long time and at
last hit upon something that he thought might prove
successful.

In his nets that day he had caught a pike and in one
of his snares he had found a grouse. He went back
now to the river and put the bird in the fishnet, and then
he went to the woods and put the fish in the snare.
This done he went home and at once told Susanna
about the buried treasure which was going to be the
means of making their old age comfortable.

She flew at once into great excitement.

"La! La! A buried treasure! Whoever heard of
such luck! Oh, how all the neighbors will envy us
when they hear about it! I can hardly wait to tell
them!"

"But they mustn't hear!" her husband told her.
'You don't want the officers of the law coming and
taking it all from us, do you?"

SUSAN WALKER, WHAT A TALKER! 223

"That would be a nice how-do-you-do!" Susanna
cried. "What! Come and take our treasure that you
found yourself in the forest?"

"Yes, my dear, that's exactly what they'd do if once
they heard about it."

"Well, you can depend upon it, my dear husband,
not a soul will hear about it from me!"

She shook her head vigorously and repeated this many
times and then tried to slip out of the house on some
such excuse as needing to borrow a cup of meal from a
neighbor.

But the man insisted on her staying beside him all
evening. She kept remembering little errands that
would take her to the houses of various neighbors but
each time she attempted to leave her husband called
her back. At last he got her safely to bed.

Early next morning, before she had been able to talk
to any one, he said:

"Now, my dear, come with me to the forest and help
me to carry home the treasure. On the way we'd better
see if we've got anything in the nets and the snares."

They went first to the river and when the man had
lifted his nets they found a grouse which he made
Susanna reach over and get. Then in the woods he let
her make the discovery of a pike in one of the snares.

224. MIGHTY MIKKO

She was all the while so excited about the treasure that
she hadn't mind enough left to be surprised that a bird
should be caught in a fishnet and a fish in a birdsnare.

Well, they found the precious treasure and they
stowed it away in two sacks which they carried home
on their backs. On the way home Susanna could
scarcely refrain from calling out to every passerby
some hint of their good fortune. As they passed the
house of Helmi, her dearest crony, she said to her hus-
band:

"My dear, won't you just wait here a moment while I
run in and get a drink of water?"

'You mustn't go in just now," her husband said.
"Don't you hear what's going on?"

There was the sound of two dogs fighting and yelping
in the kitchen.

"Helmi is getting a beating from her husband," the
man said. "Can't you hear her crying? This is no
time for an outsider to appear."

All that day and all that night he kept so close to
Susanna that the poor woman wasn't able to exchange
a word with another human being.

Early next morning she escaped him and ran as fast
as her legs could carry her to Helmi's house.

"My dear," she began all out of breath, "such a

SUSAN WALKER, WHAT A TALKER! 225

wonderful treasure as we've found but I've sworn never
to whisper a word about it for fear the government
should hear of it! I should have stopped and told you
yesterday but your husband was beating you — '

"What's that?" cried Helmi's husband who came in
just then and caught the last words.

"It's the treasure we've found!"

"The treasure? What are you talking about?
Begin at the beginning."

"Well, my old man and me we started out yesterday
morning and first we went to the river to see if there
was anything in the nets. We found a grouse — "

"A grouse?"

'Yes, we found a grouse in the nets. Then we went
to the forest and looked in the snares and in one we
found a pike."

"A pike!"

"Yes. Then we went and dug up the treasure and
put it in two sacks and you could have seen us yourself
carrying it home on our backs but you were too busy
beating poor Helmi."

"I beating poor Helmi! Ho! Ho! Ho! That is a
good one! I was busy beating my wife while you were
getting birds out of fishnets and fish out of snares ! Ho !
Ho! Hoi"

226 MIGHTY MIKKO

"It's so!" Susanna cried. "It is so! You were so
beating Helmi! And you sounded just like two dogs
fighting! And we did so carry home the treasure!"

But Helmi's husband only laughed the harder. That
afternoon when he went to the Inn he was still laughing
and when the men there asked him what was so funny
he told them Susanna's story and soon the whole village
was laughing at the foolish woman who found birds in
fishnets and fish in snares and who thought that two
yelping dogs were Helmi and her husband fighting.

As for the treasure that wasn't taken any more
seriously than the grouse and the pike.

"It must have been two sacks of turnips they carried
home on their backs!" the village people decided.

The husband of course said nothing and Susanna,
too, was soon forced to keep quiet for now whenever
she tried to explain people only laughed.

MIKKO, THE FOX

A Nursery Epic in Sixteen Adventures

Osmo, the Bear, grunted out:
"Huh! That's easy! We'll
eat the smallest of us next!"

ADVENTURE I
THE ANIMALS TAKE A BITE

A Farmer once dug a pit to trap the
Animals that had been stealing his
grain. By a strange chance he fell into
his own pit and was killed.
The Ermine found him there.
"H'm," thought the Ermine, "that's
the Farmer himself, isn't it? I better take him before
any one else gets him."

So the Ermine dragged the Farmer's body out of the
pit, put it on a sledge, and then, after taking a bite,
began hauling it away.

229

230 MIGHTY MIKKO

Presently he met the Squirrel who clapped his hands
in surprise.

"God bless you, brother!" the Squirrel exclaimed,
"what's that you're hauling behind you?"

"It's the Farmer himself," the Ermine explained.
"He fell into the pit that he had digged for us poor
forest folk and serve him right, too! Take a bite of
him and then come along and help me pull."

"Very well," the Squirrel said.

He took a bite of the Farmer and then marched along
beside the Ermine, helping him to pull the sledge.

Presently they met Jussi, the Hare. Jussi looked at
then in amazement, his eyes popping out of his head.

"Mercy me!" he cried, "what's that you two are haul-
ing?"

"It's the Farmer," the Ermine explained. "He fell
into the pit that he digged for us poor forest folk and
serve him right, too! Take a bite of him, Jussi. and
then come along and help us pull."

So Jussi, the Hare, took a bite of the Farmer and
then marched along beside the Ermine and the Squirrel
helping them to pull the sledge.

Next they met Mikko, the Fox.

"Goodness me!" Mikko said, "what's that you three
are hauling?"

THE ANIMALS TAKE A BITE 231

The Ermine again explained :

"It's the Farmer. He fell into the pit that he had
digged for us poor forest folk and serve him right, too!
Take a bite of him, Mikko, and then come along and
help us pull."

So Mikko, the Fox, took a bite and then marched
along beside the Ermine and the Squirrel and the Hare
helping them to pull the sledge.

Next they met Pekka, the Wolf.

"Good gracious!" Pekka cried, "what's that you four
are hauling?"

The Ermine explained:

"It's the Farmer. He fell into the pit that he had
digged for us poor forest folk and serve him right, too!
Take a bite of him, Pekka, and then help us pull."

So Pekka, the Wolf, took a bite and then marched
along beside the Ermine, the Squirrel, the Hare, and
the Fox, helping them to pull the sledge.

Next they met Osmo, the Bear.

"Good heavens!" Osmo rumbled, "what's that you
five are hauling?"

"It's the Farmer," the Ermine explained. "He fell
into the pit that he had digged for us poor forest folk
and serve him right, too! Take a bite of him, Osmo,
and then help us pull."

232 MIGHTY MIKKO

So Osmo, the Bear, took a bite and then marched
along beside the Ermine, the Squirrel, the Hare, the
Fox, and the Wolf, helping them to pull the sledge.

Well, they pulled and they pulled and whenever they
felt tired or hungry they stopped and took a bite until
the Farmer was about finished.

Then Pekka, the Wolf, said:

"See here, brothers, we've eaten up every bit of the
Farmer except his beard. What are we going to eat
now?"

Osmo, the Bear, grunted out:

"Huh! That's easy! We'll eat the smallest of us
next!"

He had no sooner spoken than the Squirrel ran up a
tree and the Ermine slipped under a stone.

Pekka, the Wolf said:

"But the smallest have escaped!"

Osmo, the Bear, grunted again:

"Huh! The smallest now is that pop-eyed Jussi!
Let's—"

At mention of his name the Hare went loping across
the field and was soon at a safe distance.

Osmo, the Bear, put his heavy paw on the Fox's
shoulder.

THE ANIMALS TAKE A BITE 233

"Mikko," he said, "it's your turn now for you're the
smallest of us three."

Mikko, the Fox, pretended not to be at all afraid.

"That's true," he said, "I'm the smallest. All right,
brothers, I'm ready. But before you eat me I wish
you'd take me to the top of the hill. Down here in
the valley it's so gloomy."

'Very well," the others agreed, "we'll go where you
say. It is more cheerful there."

As they climbed the hill the Fox whispered to the
Wolf:

"Sst! Pekka! When you eat me whose turn will it
be then? Who will be the smallest then?"

"Mercy me!" the Wolf cried, "it will be my turn
then, won't it?"

The terror of the thought quite took his appetite
away.

"See here, Osmo," he said to the Bear, "I don't think
it would be right for us to eat Mikko. You and I and
Mikko ought to be friends and live together in peace.
Now let's take a vote on the matter and we'll do what-
ever the majority says. I vote that we three be friends.
What do you say, Mikko?"

The Fox said that he agreed with the Wolf. It

234 MIGHTY MIKKO

would be much better all around if they three were
friends.

"Well," grunted Osmo, the Bear, "it's no use my
voting for you two make a majority. But I must say
I'm sorry to have you vote this way for I'm hungry."

So the three animals, the Bear, the Wolf, and the
Fox, agreed henceforward to be friends and planned to
live near each other in the woods behind the Farm.

ADVENTURE II
THE PARTNERS

The Bear and the Wolf and the Fox
made houses quite close together and
the Wolf and the Fox decided to go
into partnership.

"The first thing we ought to do,'*
said Pekka, the Wolf, "is make a
clearing in the forest and plant some crops."

The Fox agreed and the very next day they started
out to work. Each had a crock with three pats of butter
for his dinner. They left their crocks in the cool water of a
little spring in the forest not far from the place where
they had decided to make a clearing.

235

236 MIGHTY MIKKO

It was hard work felling trees and the Fox, soon
tiring of it, made some sort of excuse to run off. When
he came back he said to the Wolf:

"Pekka, the folks at the Farm are having a christen-
ing and have sent me an invitation to attend."

"It's too bad we're so busy to-day," the Wolf said.
"Another day you might have gone."

"But I must go," the Fox insisted. "They've been
good neighbors to us and they'd be insulted if I re-
fused."

"Very well," the Wolf said, "if you feel that way
about it you better go. But hurry back for we have a
lot to do."

So the Fox trotted off but he got no farther than
the spring where the butter crocks were cooling. He
took the Wolf's crock and licked off the top layer of
butter. Then after a while he went back to the
clearing.

"Well, Mikko," the Wolf said, "is the christening
over?"

"Yes, it's over."

"What did they name the child?"

"They named it Top."

"Top? That's a strange name!"

In a few moments the Fox again ran off and returned

THE PARTNERS 237

with the announcement that there was to be another
christening at the Farm and again they wanted him to
attend.

"Another christening!" the Wolf exclaimed. "How
can that be?"

"This time the daughter has a baby."

"You're not going, are you, Mikko? You can't
always be going to christenings."

"That's true, Pekka, that's true," said the Fox, "but
I think I must go this time."

The Wolf sighed.

"You will hurry back, won't you? This work is too
much for me alone."

"Yes, Pekka dear," the Fox promised, "I'll hurry
back as quickly as I can."

So he trotted off again to the spring and the Wolf's
butter crock. This time he ate the middle pat of the
Wolf's butter, then slowly sauntered back to the clear-
ing.

"Well," said the Wolf, pausing a moment in his work,
"what did they name the baby this time?"

"This one they named Middle."

"Middle? That's a strange name to give a baby!"

For a few moments the Fox pretended to work hard.
Then he ran off again. When he came back, he sairl :

238 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Pekka, do you know they're having another christen-
ing at the Farm and they say that I just must come."

"Another christening! Now, Mikko, that's too
much! How can they be having another christening?"

"Well, this time it's the daughter-in-law that has a
baby."

"I don't care who it is," the Wolf said, "you just
can't go. You've got some work to do, you have!"

The Fox agreed :

'You're right, Pekka, you're right! I'm entirely too
busy to be running off all the time to christenings! I'd
say, 'No!' in a minute if it wasn't that we are new
settlers and they are our nearest neighbors. As it is
I'm afraid they'd think it wasn't neighborly if I didn't
come. But I'll hurry back, I promise you!"

So for the third time the Fox trotted off to the little
spring and this time he licked the Wolf's butter crock
clean to the bottom. Then he went slowly back to the
clearing and told the Wolf about the christening and
the baby.

"They've named this one Bottom," he said.

"Bottom!" the Wolf echoed. "What funny names
they give children nowadays !"

The Fox pretended to work hard for a few minutes,
then threw himself down exhausted.

Wake up! There's

butter running out of your nose!'

240 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Heigh ho!" he said, with a yawn, "I'm so tired and
hungry it must be dinner time!"

The Wolf looked at the sun and said:

"Yes, I think we had better rest now and eat."

So they went to the spring and got their butter crocks.
The Wolf found that his had already been licked clean.

"Mikko!" he cried, "have you been at my butter?"

"Me?" the Fox said in a tone of great innocence.
"How could I have been at your butter when you know
perfectly well that I've been working right beside you
all morning except when I was away at the christenings?
You must have eaten up your butter yourself!"

"Of course I haven't eaten it up myself!" the Wolf
declared. "I just bet anything you took it!"

The Fox pretended to be much aggrieved.

"Pekka, I won't have you saying such a thing! We
must get at the bottom of this! I tell you what we'll
do: we'll both lie down in the sun and the heat of the
sun will melt the butter and make it run. Now then,
if butter runs out of my nose then I'm the one that
has eaten your butter ; if it runs out of your nose, then
you've eaten it yourself. Do you agree to this test?"

The Wolf said, yes, he agreed, and at once lay down
in the sun. He had been working so hard that he was

THE PARTNERS 241

very tired and in a few moments he was sound asleep.
Thereupon the Fox slipped over and daubed a little
lump of butter on the end of his nose. The sun melted
the butter and then, of course, it looked as if it were
running out of the Wolf's nose.

"Wake up, Pekka! Wake up!" the Fox cried.
''There's butter running out of your nose!"

The Wolf awoke and felt his nose with his tongue.

'Why, Mikko," he said in surprise, "so there is!
Well, I suppose I must have eaten that butter myself
but I give you my word for it I don't remember doing
it!"

"Well," said the Fox, pretending still to feel hurt,
"you shouldn't always suspect me."

When they went back to the clearing, the Wolf began
pulling the brush together to burn it up and the Fox
slipped away and lay down behind some brushes.

"Mikko! Mikko!" the Wolf called. "Aren't you
going to help me burn the brush?"

"You set it a-fire," the Fox called back, "and I'll
stay here to guard against any flying sparks. We don't
want to burn down the whole forest!"

So the Wolf burned up all the brush while the Fox
took a pleasant nap.

242 MIGHTY MIKKO

Then when he was ready to plant the seed in the rich
wood ashes, the Wolf again called out to the Fox to
come help him.

"You do the planting, Pekka," the Fox called back,
"and I'll stay here and frighten off the birds. If I
don't they'll come and pick up every seed you plant."

So JMikko, the rascal, took another nap while the poor
Wolf planted the field he had already cleared and
burned.

ADVENTURE III
THE FOX AND THE CROW

In a short time the field that Pekka,
the Wolf, had planted began to sprout.
Pekka was delighted.

"See, Mikko," he said to the Fox,
"our grain is growing and we shall
soon be harvesting it!'*
The Fox turned up his nose indifferently.
"If we don't get something to eat before that grain
ripens," he said, "we'll starve, both of us! While we
wait for the harvest I think we better go out hunting.
I'm going this minute for I tell you I'm hungry!"
The Fox went sniffing into the forest and finally came

243

244 MIGHTY MIKKO

to the tree where Harakka, the Magpie, had her nest.
The Fox, cocking his head, paced slowly round and
round the tree, looking at it from every angle. Harak-
ka, the Magpie, sitting on her nest among her fledglings
began to feel nervous.

"Say, Mikko," she called down, "what are you looking
at?"

At first the Fox made no answer. Deep in thought,
apparently, he nodded his head and murmured:

"Yes, the very tree!"

Harakka, the Magpie, again called down:

"What are you looking at, Mikko?"

The Fox started as though he had heard the question
for the first time.

"Ah, Harakka, is that you? Good day to you! I
hope you are well! I hope the children are all well!
I was so busy looking for the right tree that I didn't
recognize you at first. You see I have to cut down a
tree to get wood for a new pair of skis. This tree is
just the one I want."

"Oh, mercy me!" the Magpie cried. 'You can't
cut down this tree! Do you want to kill all my chil-
dren? This is our home!"

Mikko, the rascal, pretended to be very sympa-
thetic.

THE FOX AND THE CROW 24-5

"I'm awfully sorry to have to disturb you, truly I
am, but I'm afraid I do have to cut down this tree. I
can't find another that suits me as well."

The Magpie flapped her wings in despair.

"You hard-hearted wretch ! What will you take not
to cut down this tree?"

The Fox put his paw to his head and pretended to
think hard. After a moment he said :

"Well, Harakka, I'll make you this offer: I'll leave
this tree standing provided you throw me down one
of your fledglings."

"What!" the poor Magpie shrieked. "Give you one
of my babies! I'll never do that! Never! Never!
Never!"

"Oh, very well! Just as you like! If I cut the tree
down I can get them all. But I thought for the sake
of old times I'd ask for only one. However, do as you
think best."

What could the poor Magpie say? If the tree were
felled and her fledglings thrown out of the nest they
would certainly all perish. Perhaps it would be wise
to sacrifice one to save the rest.

"You promise to let the tree stand," she said, "if I
give you one of my children?"

"Yes," the rascal promised, "just drop me one of your

246 MIGHTY MIKKO

fledglings, a nice plump one, and I won't cut down the
tree."

With shaking claw Harakka pushed one of her chil-
dren over the edge of the nest. It fluttered to the
ground and Mikko carried it off.

Well, the next day what did that Fox do but come
back and begin pacing around the tree again.

"Yes," he said, pretending to talk to himself, "this
is the best tree I can find. I might as well cut it down
at once."

"But, Mikko!" cried the Magpie, "you forget! You
said you wouldn't cut down this tree if I gave you one
of my children and I did give you one!"

The Fox flipped his tail indifferently.

"I know," he said, "I did promise but I thought then
I could find another tree that would suit me as well as
this one, but I can't. I've looked everywhere and I
can't. I'm sorry but I'm afraid that I'll just have to
take this tree."

"O dear, O dear, O dear!" the poor distracted Mag-
pie wept. "Will nothing make you leave this tree
stand?"

The Fox smacked his lips.

"Well, Harakka, drop me down another of your
fledglings and I won't disturb the tree. I promise."

THE FOX AND THE CROW 247

"What! Another of my babies! Oh, you wretch!"

"Well, suit yourself," Mikko said. "One of your
fledglings and you can keep the others safe in the nest,
or I'll cut the tree down."

What could the poor Magpie do? Wouldn't it be
better to sacrifice another fledgling on the chance of
saving the rest? Yes, it would ! So she pushed another
out of the nest. It fluttered to the ground and Mikko,
the rascal, carried it off.

That afternoon Varis, the Crow, came to call on the
(Magpie.

"Why, my dear," she said, looking over the fledglings,
"two of your children are missing! Whatever has
become of them?"

"It's that rascally Mikko!" the Magpie cried, and
thereupon she told her friend the whole story.

Varis, the Crow, listened carefully and then said:

"My dear, that miserable Fox has been fooling you!
Why, he can't cut down this tree or any other tree for
that matter! He hasn't even got an ax! Don't let
him impose on you a third time!"

So the very next day when the Fox came and again
tried the same little trick, Harakka, the Magpie,
tossed her head scornfully and said :

"Go along, you rascal! You can't fool me again!

248 MIGHTY MIKKO

How can you cut down this tree or any other for that
matter when you haven't even got an ax!"

The Fox was furious at being cheated of his dinner.

"You didn't think that out yourself, Harakka!" he
said. "Some one's been talking to you! Who was it?"

"It was my dear friend, Varis," the Magpie said.
"She's on to your tricks!"

"I'll teach that Crow to interfere with my affairs!"
the Fox muttered to himself as he trotted off.

He went to an open field and lay down with his mouth
open, pretending to be dead.

"I'm sure Varis will soon spy me!" he said to himself.

He was right. Presently the Crow began circling
above him. She flew nearer and nearer and at last
alighted on his head. His tongue was lolling out and
Varis decided to have her first bite there. She gave it
a sharp peck at which the Fox jumped up and caught
her in his paws.

"Ha! Ha!" he cried. "So you're the one who
spoiled my little game with Harakka, are you? Well,
I'll teach you not to interfere with me! As I haven't
got one of Harakka's fledglings for my dinner, I'm
going to take you!"

'You don't mean you're going to eat me!" cried the
Crow in terror.

"Til teach that Crow
to interfere with my
affairs!" the Fox muttered
to himself as he trotted off

250 MIGHTY MIKKO

"That's exactly what I mean!"

"No, no, Mikko! Don't do that!"
'Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do! I'm
going to teach you birds that I'm not an animal to be
played jokes on!"

"I suppose," the Crow said, sighing, "if it must be,
it must be! But, Mikko, if you really want to use me
as a warning to the other birds, you oughtn't to eat me
right down. It would be much better if you dragged
me along the ground first. Then they'd see a wing
here, a leg there, and a long trail of feathers. That
really would terrify them."

"I believe you're right," the Fox said.

He put the Crow down on the ground and lifted his
paw for a moment to change his hold. The Crow
instantly jerked away and escaped.

"Ha! Ha!" she cawed as she flew off. "You were
clever enough to catch me, Mikko, but you weren't
clever enough to eat me when you had me!"

So this was one time when Mikko, the Fox, was
worsted.

ADVENTURE IV
THE CHIEF MOURNER

"Mercy me !" thought Mikko to him-
self as he watched Varis, the Crow, fly
away, "this is certainly my unlucky
day! There I had my dinner right in
my hand and then lost it!"

Sighing and shaking his head he
sauntered slowly back to the forest.

Now it happened that Osmo, the Bear, had just lost
his wife and was out looking for some one to bewail her
death. The first person he met was Pekka, the Wolf.

251

252 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Pekka," he said, "my wife's dead and I'm out look-
ing for a good strong mourner. Can you mourn?"

"Me? Indeed I can! Just listen!"

Pekka, the Wolf, pointed his nose to the sky and let
out a long shivery howl.

"There!" he said. "I don't believe you'll find any
one that can do any better than that !"

But Osmo, the Bear, shook his head.

"No, Pekka, you won't do. I don't like your mourn-
ing at all!"

The Bear ambled on and presently he met the Hare.

"Good day, Jussi," he said. "Are you any good at
mourning? Show me what you can do."

The Hare gave some frightened squeaks as his idea
of mourning the dead.

"No, no," Osmo said, "I don't like your mourning
either."

So he walked on farther until by chance he met the
Fox.

"Mikko," he said, "my wife's dead and I'm out look-
ing for a good strong mourner. Can you mourn?"

"Can I? Indeed I can!" the Fox declared. "I'm a
marvel at mourning! I can wail high and low and
soft and loud and just any way you want! Listen!"
And Mikko, beginning with a little whimpering sound,

Mikko, beginning with
a little whimpering sound,
slowly rose to a high heart-
rending cry

254 MIGHTY MIKKO

slowly rose to a high heartrending cry. This is what
he wailed:

"Med! Med! Medl
The Bear's Wife is dead !

Lax! Lax! Lax!
No more she'll spin the flax!

Eyes! Eyes! Eyes!
No more she'll bake the pies !

Air! Air! Air!
No more she'll drive the mare!

Shakes! Shakes! Shakes!
There'll be no more little cakes!

Darth! Darth! Darth!
Throw the pots on the hearth
For the Bear's Wife is dead!

Med! Med! Med!"

Osmo, the Bear, was deeply moved.

"Beautiful! Beautiful!" he grunted hoarsely.
"How well you knew her! Come along home with me,
Mikko, and start right in! Oh, how beautifully you wail!"

So Mikko went home with the Bear. The old Bear
Wife was laid out on a bench in the kitchen.

"Now then," the Bear said, "you begin the wailing
while I cook the porridge."

"No, no, Osmo," the Fox said, "I couldn't possibly
wail in here! The place is full of smoke and my voice

THE CHIEF MOURNER 255

would get husky in two minutes ! Can't you lay her out
in the storehouse?"

The Bear demurred but the Fox insisted and at last
had his way. So together they dragged the body of the
old Bear Wife out to the storehouse. The Fox stood
beside the body ready to begin his wailing and the Bear
went back to the kitchen.

The moment the Bear was out of sight Mikko, the
rascal, instead of bewailing the old Bear Wife began
gobbling her up! He just gobbled and gobbled and
gobbled as fast as he could.

"What's the matter?" the Bear called out after a few
minutes. "Why don't you begin?'*

The Fox made no reply but kept on gobbling as hard
as he could.

"Mikko! Mikko!" the Bear called out again.
"What's the matter? Why aren't you howling?"

By this time the Fox had made a good dinner, so he
called back:

"Don't bother me ! I'm busy eating! Yum! Yum!
Yum! Bear meat is awful good! Just give me a few
more minutes and I'll be finished!"

At that the Bear rushed out of the kitchen in a
terrible rage but the Fox was already running off and
the Bear was unable to catch him. He did hit the end

256 MIGHTY MIKKO

of his tail with the long spoon with which he had been
measuring the meal, but that was all.

Mikko, the rascal, got safely away. However, to this
day his tail shows the white mark of the meal.

ADVENTURE V
MIRRI, THE CAT

One day while the Fox was out
walking in the forest he met a stranger.
"Good day," he said. "Who are
you?"

"I am Mirri," the stranger said, "a
poor unfortunate Cat out of employ-
ment. I had service in a decent family but I've had
to leave them."

"Did they treat you badly?" the Fox asked.
"No, it wasn't that. They were considerate enough
but they kept getting poorer and poorer until finally

267

258 MIGHTY MIKKO

they hadn't food enough to feed us animals. Then I
overheard the master say that soon they'd be forced to
eat us and that they'd begin with me. At that I decided
it was time for me to run away and here I am."

"My poor Cat," Mikko said, "you've had a cruel
experience! Why don't you take service with me?"

"Will I be safe with you?" the Cat asked. "Will
you protect me?"

"Will I?" the Fox repeated boastfully. "My dear
Mirri, once it becomes known that you are Mikko's
servant all the animals will show you a wholesome
respect."

"Well then, I'll enter your service," the Cat said.

So the bargain was struck and the Fox at once began
to train his new servant.

"Now, Mirri, tell me: what would you do if you
suddenly met a Bear?"

"There's just one thing I couid do, master: I'd run
up a tree."

The Fox laughed.

'You must have more ways than one to meet such
a situation ! Take me now : there are any of a hundred
things that I could do if I met a Bear!"

Just then Osmo, the Bear, ambled softly up behind
the Fox. The Cat saw him and instantly flew up a

jerked quickly away and
fled and the Bear was left
standing with his mouth wide open

260 MIGHTY MIKKO

tree. Before the Fox could move Osmo clutched him
firmly on the shoulder with his teeth.

"Oh, master, master 1" the Cat called down from the
tree. "What's this? I with my one way have escaped
and you with your hundred are caught!"

But the Fox paid no heed to the Cat. He twisted
his head around and looked reproachfully at the Bear.

"Why, Osmo, my dear old friend!" he said, "what
in the world do you mean taking hold of me so roughly !
Ouch! You're nipping my shoulder, really you are!
I don't understand why you're acting this way! Here
I've always been such a good friend to you, so faithful,
so true, so — "

"What!" rumbled the Bear. "Faithful! True! Oh,
you—"

Osmo's feelings overcame him to such an extent that
he opened his jaws to roar out freely his denial of the
Fox's hypocrisy.

That gave the Fox just the chance he wanted. He
jerked quickly away and fled and the Bear was left
standing with his mouth wide open.

Later when the Bear had ambled off the Fox returned
and called the Cat down from the tree.

"You see, Mirri," he remarked casually, "it wasn't
anything at all for me to get the best of the Bear!"

MIRRI, THE CAT 261

He could see that he had vastly impressed the Cat,
so he let the subject drop.

"Come along, Mini," he said, "it's time for us to
go home.'*

A terrible creature landed
on his nose and drove it
full of pins and needles

ADVENTURE VI
THE FOX'S SERVANT

A day or so later the Fox met Pekka,
the Wolf. The Fox hadn't seen much
of Pekka recently for Pekka had been
having a hard time and had been on
the verge of starvation. Now he was
sleek again and well fed for he had
recently killed an Ox.

"Good day, Pekka," the Fox said in a friendly way.
"Good day, Mikko. How are you?"
"Very fine indeed!" the Fox said. 'You see I have
a new servant. Oh, he's a wonderful servant! He's

263

264 MIGHTY MIKKO

not big to look at, you know, but he's so strong and
quick that he'd jump on you in a minute and eat you
up before you knew what was happening!"

"Really, Mikko?"
'Yes, really! You just ought to see him!"

"I'd like to see him," the Wolf said.

"Well, you might slip down now and take a peep in
the kitchen. He's at home. But, my dear Pekka, I
warn you not to let him see you! If he catches sight
of you, I won't be responsible for the consequences!"

The Wolf was deeply impressed with all this. He
crept carefully down to the Fox's kitchen and sniffed
cautiously at the crack under the door. The Cat in-
side, seeing the tip of the Wolf's nose and thinking it
was a Mouse, pounced on it with all his claws. This
gave the Wolf a mighty fright and he bolted madly
off into the forest.

He was still panting when he met the Bear.

"Osmo," he said, "have you heard about that awful
creature that Mikko has for a servant?"

The Bear had heard nothing, so the Wolf related
to him his own terrifying experience.

The Bear's curiosity was aroused.

"I must have a glimpse of this wonderful servant,"
he said, ambling off in the direction of the Fox's kitchen.

THE FOX'S SERVANT 265

"I'll wait for you here," the Wolf called after him,
"and I warn you, Osmo, be careful!"

The Bear when he got to the Fox's kitchen quietly
stuck his nose under the crack of the door and squinted
inside. He hardly had time for one squint when a
terrible creature with a straight tail that looked like
a spear came flying through the air, landed on his
nose, and drove it full of pins and needles.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" the Bear whimpered as he
hurried back to the Wolf.

"Did you see him?" the Wolf asked.

"I got just one glimpse of him," the Bear said. "He
had a long spear sticking up over his shoulder and he
came swooping down through the air just as if he had
wings!"

"My! I wish we could really see him!" the Wolf
said. "Suppose we ask Mikko to arrange some way
we can have a good look at him."

So they went to the Fox and Mikko, the rascal, said :

"Well, now, if you make a feast and invite my serv-
ant I think he will come."

"All right," the Wolf said, "that's what we'll do.
I've still got some of that ox. It will make a fine feast."

So they roasted the remains of the ox and set it out.

"Now I'll go get my servant," the Fox said. "When

266 MIGHTY MIKKO

you hear us coming, you two hide some place where you
can see us but we can't see you. If my servant once
sees you I won't be responsible for the consequences!"

So the Wolf hid in some bushes nearby and the Bear
drew himself up into the branches of a tree.

Well, the Fox and the Cat arrived and sat them
down to the feast. Now it happened that the Wolf
was not able to see, so he tried to twist himself around
into a better position. The Cat caught a glimpse of
his tail moving in the bushes and instantly pounced on
it. With one terrified yelp, the Wolf jumped out of
the bushes and fled into the forest as fast as he could.

In fright the Cat scampered up the tree and the
Bear, of course, supposed that the awful creature now
was after him. In his frantic efforts to escape he
tumbled down out of the tree and broke two ribs. But
for all that he made off, too terrified to look back.

So the Fox and the Cat were left to finish the ox
in peace.

ADVENTURE VII
THE WOLF SINGS

Having sacrificed his ox in order to
feast the Fox's servant, the Wolf had
nothing left for himself and was soon
very hungry. He could find nothing
to eat in the forest, so he went prowl-
ing around a farm in hopes of getting

a pig or a chicken. The only living creature he came

upon was a thin old Dog asleep in the sun.

"This is better than nothing," he thought to himself

and, taking hold of the Dog, he began dragging it

off.

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268 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Cousin! Cousin!" cried the Dog. "Is this any way
to treat a relation? Let me go!"

"I'm sorry," the Wolf said, "but I can't let you go.
I'm too hungry."

"Let me go," the Dog begged, "and I tell you what
I'll do: I'll give you a bottle of vodka."

"Promises come easy," the Wolf said. "Where will
you get the vodka?"

"Under the bench in the kitchen. That's where the
master keeps his bottle. I've seen him hide it there.
Come to-night after the family's asleep and I'll let you
in and give you the vodka."

Now Pekka, the Wolf, was very fond of vodka, so
he said to the Dog:

"Very well, I'll let you go. But see that you keep
your promise!"

Late that night when the family were asleep, the
Wolf came scratching at the farmhouse door and the
Dog let him in.

"Well, old fellow, you know why I've come," the
Wolf said.

At once the Dog crawled under the bench and got
the master's bottle of vodka.

"Here, Pekka, here it is!" he said, offering the Wolf
the bottle.

The Wolf went staggering
around the room howling at
the top of his voice

270 MIGHTY MIKKO

"You drink first," Pekka insisted. "You're the
host."

The Dog raised the bottle and took a little sip. Then
the Wolf took a deep swallow.

"Ah!" he said, smacking his lips, "that's something
like!"

His stomach was empty and the vodka went through
his veins like fire. He felt happy and laughed and
went capering around the room.

"I feel like singing!" he cried.

"My dear Pekka," the Dog said, "I beg you don't
sing! You will wake the folks! Sit down quietly and
we'll talk."

So they sat awhile and talked and then the Wolf
took another deep swallow of the vodka. Again he
wanted to sing and the Dog had trouble in restrain-
ing him.

"Do you want to wake the family, Pekka? Be quiet
now or you can't have any more vodka !"

The Wolf took another deep drink and after that
there was no holding him back. He went staggering
around the room howling at the top of his voice.

The Farmer and all his family came hurrying into
the kitchen with clubs and pokers and whatever they
could pick up.

THE WOLF SINGS 271

"It's a Wolf!" the Farmer cried. "The impudent
scoundrel, coming right into the house 1 Give him a
good beating!"

If the door hadn't been open they would have clubbed
poor Pekka to death. As it was he barely escaped with
his life.

In the confusion that
followed the Wolves stampeded,
running helter-skelter in all
directions

ADVENTURE VIII
THE CLEVER GOAT

The truth is Pekka, the Wolf, was
a pretty stupid fellow always getting
into some scrape or other. With sore
ribs and a back aching from the beating
which the farm folk had given him he
slunk quietly along the forest ways

hoping to come upon some easy prey. Suddenly he saw

ahead of him a Goat and a Ram.

"What are they doing hereabouts?" he thought to

himself. "This is no place for them and if anything

happens to them it will be their own fault."

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274 MIGHTY MIKKO

Vuhi, the Goat, and Dinas, the Ram, both knew that
the forest was no place for them. But where else
could they go? They had recently been turned loose
to fend for themselves by their poor old master who
was no longer able to feed them.

"This forest rather frightens me," the Ram had said
to the Goat. "Do you suppose we'll be able to keep
off the Wolves?"

Vuhi, the Goat, flirted his whiskers and said:

"I've got a plan."

Thereupon he took a sack and half filled it with dry
chips. Then when he shook the sack the chips made a
hollow rattle. He threw the sack over his shoulder ano*
said to the Ram:

"Don't you be frightened, Dinas. We'll be able to
hold our own with the forest creatures."

It was just at this moment that Pekka, the Wolf,
appeared.

"Ha! Ha!" said Pekka suspiciously. "What's that
you've got in that sack ? No nonsense now ! Answer me
at once or I'll have to kill you both!"

Vuhi, the Goat, gave the sack a little rattle.

"In this sack?" he said. "Oh, only the skulls and
bones of the Wolves we have eaten. We haven't had

THE CLEVER GOAT 275

any Wolf meat now for some time, have we, Dinas? It's
good you've come along for we're hungry. . . . Atten-
tion, Dinas! Kill the Wolf !"

The Ram lowered his horns ready for attack and
Pekka, the Wolf, too surprised to resist and too stiff
to run away, cried out wildly:

"Brothers! Brothers! Don't kill me! I'm your
friend! Spare me and I'll do something for you!"

"Attention, Dinas!" the Goat commanded. "Don't
kill the Wolf just yet!"

Then he asked Pekka:

"What will you do for us if we spare you?"

"I'll send you twelve Wolves," Pekka promised.
"That will give you more meat than you'd have if
you killed just me!"

'Twelve," the Goat replied. "You are right: twelve
Wolves will give us more meat than one. Very well,
we'll let you go on condition that you send us twelve,
But see you keep your word!"

So the Wolf went off as fast as his stiff legs could
carry him and assembled twelve of his brothers.

"I've called you together," he said, "to warn you
of two terrible creatures, a Goat and a Ram, who are
here in the forest eating up Wolves! Already they

276 MIGHTY MIKKO

have a sack full of our unfortunate relations' skulls
and bones! I saw the sack myself! Don't you think
we ought all of us to flee?"

"What!" said the other Wolves, "thirteen Wolves
turn tail on one Goat and one Ram? Never! We'll
go together and give them battle!"

"Don't count me in!" Pekka said. "I don't want to
see those two again!"

So the twelve Wolves marched off without Pekka.

The Goat as he saw them coming ran up a tree. The
Ram followed him but couldn't get very high.

The twelve Wolves came under the tree and stand-
ing in close formation called out:

"Now then, you two, come on! We're ready for
you!"

"Attention, Dinas!" the Goat commanded. "They're
all here, so lose no more time! Jump down among
them and kill them!"

The Goat himself began climbing down the tree, at
the same time making an awful noise with his sack. He
gave the Ram a push and the Ram slipped and fell
right on the backs of the Wolves.

"That's right, Dinas! Kill them all!" the Goat
shouted, rattling his sack more furiously than ever.
"Don't let one of them escape!"

THE CLEVER GOAT 277

In the confusion that followed the Wolves stampeded,
running helter-skelter in all directions. Every Wolf
there felt that his own escape was a piece of rare good
fortune.

"Those terrible two!" he thought.

Thereafter Vuhi, the Goat, and Dinas, the Ram,
lived on in the forest untroubled by the Wolves.

"Here are three of us and
see, here on the floor is our
harvest already divided into
three heaps"

ADVENTURE IX
THE HARVEST

Well, the time came when the field
of barley which the Fox and the Wolf
had planted together was ready to har-
vest. So the two friends cut the grain
and carried the sheaves to the threshing
barn where they spread them out to dry.
When it was time to thresh the grain, they asked
Osmo, the Bear, to come and help them.
"Certainly," Osmo said.

At the time agreed the three animals met at the
threshing barn.

279

280 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Now the first thing to decide," Pekka said, "is how
to divide the work."

The Fox climbed nimbly up to the rafters.

"I'll stay up here," he called down, "and support
the beams and the rafters. In that way there won't
be any danger of their falling and injuring either of
you. You two work down there without any concern.
Trust me! I'll take care of you!"

So Osmo, the Bear, used the flail, and Pekka, the
Wolf, winnowed the chaff from the grain. Mikko, the
rascal, occasionally dropped down upon them a hunk
of wood.

"Take care!" they'd call out. "Do you want to kiU
us?"

"Indeed, brothers, you have no idea how hard it is
for me to hold up all these rafters !" Mikko would say.
"You're very lucky it's only a little piece that drops
on you now and then! If it weren't for me you'd cer-
tainly be killed, both of you !"

Well, the Bear and the Wolf worked steadily.
When they were finished Mikko, the rascal, leaped
down from the rafters and stretched himself as though
he had been working the hardest of them all.

"I'm glad that job of mine is finished!" he said. "I
couldn't have held things up much longer!"

THE HARVEST 281

"Well now," Pekka asked, "how shall we divide this
our harvest?"

"I'll tell you how," Mikko said. "Here are three
of us and, see, here on the floor is our harvest already
divided into three heaps. The biggest heap will natur-
ally go to the biggest of us. That's Osmo, the Bear.
The middle sized heap will go to you, Pekka. I'm the
smallest, so the smallest heap comes to me."

The Bear and the Wolf, stupid old things, agreed
to this. So Osmo took the great heap of straw, Pekka
the pile of chaff, and Mikko, the rascal, got for his
share the little mound of clean grain.

Together they all went to the mill to grind their meal.

As the millstone turned on Mikko's grain, it made
a rough rasping sound.

"Strange," Osmo said to Pekka, "Mikko's grain
sounds different from ours."

"'Mix some sand with yours," Mikko said, "then yours
will make the same sound."

So the Bear and the Wolf poured some sand in their
straw and their chaff and sure enough, when they
turned their millstones again, they, too, got a rough
rasping sound.

This satisfied them and they went home feeling they
had just as good a winter's supply of food as Mikko.

He dropped it in the water
and of course it spread out
far and wide and the current
carried it off

ADVENTURE X
THE PORRIDGE

Well, it was only natural that they
should all want to see at once what kind
of porridge their meal would make.

Osmo's came out black and disgust-
ing. Greatly disturbed he ambled over
to Mikko's house for advice. The
Fox was stirring his own porridge which was white
and smooth.

"What's the matter with my porridge?" the Bear
asked. "Yours is white and smooth but mine is black
and horrid."

283

284 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Did you wash your meal before you put it into the
pot?" the Fox asked.

"Wash it? No! How do you wash meal?"

"You take it to the river and drop it in the water.
Then when it's clean you take it out."

The Bear at once went home and got his ground up
straw and took it to the river. He dropped it in the
water and of course it spread out far and wide and
the current carried it off.

So that was the end of Osmo's share of the harvest.

Pekka, the Wolf, had as little luck with his porridge.
Soon he, too, came to Mikko for advice.

"I don't know what's the matter with me," he said.
"I don't seem to be able to make good porridge. Look
at yours all white and smooth! I must watch you
how you make it. Won't you let me hang my pot on
your crane? Then I'll do just as you do."

"Certainly," the Fox said. "Hang your pot on this
chain and the two pots can then cook side by side."

"Yours is so white to begin with," Pekka said, "and
mine looks no better than dirt."

"Before you came I climbed up the chain and hung
over the pot," the Fox said. "The heat of the fire
melted the fat in my tail and it dripped down into the

THE PORRIDGE 285

pot. It's that fat that makes my porridge look so white."
Poor gullible Pekka immediately suspended himself
on the chain above his porridge. But he didn't stay
there long. The flames scorched him and he fell down
hurting his side. If you notice, to this day any Wolf
that you meet has stiff sides that make it hard for him

to turn and twist, and to this day all Wolves smell of
burnt hair.

Well, Pekka, after he had got his breath, tasted his
porridge again to see if it was any better. But it wasn't.
It was as bad as ever.

"I don't see any difference in it," he said. "Let me
taste yours, Mikko."

The Fox artfully scooped up a spoonful of the Wolf's
porridge and dropped it into his own pot.

"Help yourself," he said. "Take some out of that
spot there. That's good."

The place he pointed to was, of course, the place
where he had dropped some of the Wolf's own porridge.

So poor old stupid Pekka only sampled his own por-
ridge again when he thought he was tasting Mikko's.

"Strange," he said, "your porridge doesn't taste good
to me either. I don't believe anything tastes good to
me to-day. The truth is I don't believe I like porridge."

286 MIGHTY MIKKO

He went home sad and discouraged while Mikko, the
rascal, chuckled to himself and said:

"I wonder why Pekka doesn't like porridge. It
tastes awful good to me!"

ADVENTURE XI
NURSE MIKKO

The Wolf's wife gave birth to three
little cubs and then died.

'You poor children!" Pekka said,
"your mother is dead and there is no
one to take her place. I must get you

a nurse.'

So he went through the forest hunting some one to
take care of his motherless cubs. The white Grouse
offered her services but, when she sang a lullaby to
show what a good nurse she could be, Pekka shook his
head.

"I don't like your voice," he said. "I can't take you."
Then Jussi, the Hare, applied for the position.

287

288 MIGHTY MIKKO

;'You know I'm lame," he said, "so quiet work like
nursing would suit me."

"Can you sing lullabies?" Pekka asked.

"Oh, yes! Listen!" and Jussi began squealing.

"Stop !" Pekka cried. "I don't like your voice either."

Just then Mikko, the Fox, came running up.

"Good day, Pekka," he said. "I hear you're out
looking for a nurse for your sweet babies."

'Yes, Mikko, I am. Can you recommend one?"

"I'd like the job myself," the Fox said.

"You, Mikko?"

"Yes."

"But you can't sing lullabies, can you?"

"Oh, yes! I sing them very beautifully. Listen:

'Hushabye, sweet little cubs,
Hushabye to sleep !
Who best loves you, do you think?
Who will give you food and drink?
Who on faithful guard will keep?
Mikko ! Mikko !

'Hushabye, sweet little cubs,
Mikko loves you well,
Loves each little pointed nose,
Loves your little scratchy toes,
Loves you more than he can tell —
Mikko! Mikko!'"

He ran after Mikko and -was about
to overtake him when Mikko
slipped into a crevice in tlie rocks.
Only one paw stuck out

290 MIGHTY MIKKO

Pekka, the Wolf, was charmed with Mikko's lullaby.

"Beautiful! Beautiful!" he said. "I never heard a
sweeter lullaby ! You're the very nurse I want ! Come
home with me at once."

So Mikko went home with Pekka and took over the
care of the three little Wolf cubs.

"I'll go off now and get them something to eat,"
Pekka said.

He came back after a while with the hind leg of a
horse.

"This will be enough for them to start on," he said.

The Fox shook his head.

"I'm afraid it won't last them very long. They're
beautiful healthy children with fine appetites."

"Poor little dears !" Pekka said. "Let me see them."

"Not just now!" Mikko insisted. "They're asleep
and mustn't be disturbed. Go out hunting again and
the next time you come home you shall see them."

Pekka felt that the Fox must be a very good nurse
indeed to be so strict. So he went off hunting again
without seeing his children.

As soon as he was gone Mikko, the rascal, ate up
all the horse meat without giving the cubs one bite and
then, as he was still hungry, he ate one of the cubs. The
next day he ate another cub, and the day following he

NURSE MIKKO 291

ate the last of them. He was just finishing that last
cub when the Wolf came home and called in at the door :

"Now, nurse, here I am come home to see my dear
children! They're well, aren't they?"

"Very well !" the Fox declared. "But they've grown
so big under my good care that the house isn't large
enough now to hold them and you and me at the same
time. If you're coming in, I must get out first."

So the Wolf stood aside as the Fox came out and
scampered away.

Then the Wolf went in and of course all he could
find of his dear children were their bones.

'You faithless, faithless nurse!" he cried.

In awful rage he ran after Mikko and was about to
overtake him when Mikko slipped into a crevice in the
rocks. Only one paw stuck out. The Wolf pounced
on this paw and began gnawing it.

"Say, Pekka, have you gone crazy?" the Fox asked.
"What do you think you're doing biting that old root?
I hope you don't think it's one of my paws. I'm sitting
on all four paws."

The Wolf looked up to see whether this was true and,
quick as a flash, Mikko, the rascal, drew in his paw.

So the poor old Wolf, fooled again, went sadly home.

Of course the instant
he opened his mouth the
Grouse flew away

ADVENTURE XII

THE BEAR SAYS NORTH

One day while Osmo, the Bear, was
prowling about the woods he caught a
Grouse.

"Pretty good!" he thought to him-
self. "Wouldn't the other animals be
surprised if they knew old Osmo had
caught a Grouse!"

He was so proud of his feat that he wanted all the
world to know of it. So, holding the Grouse carefully
in his teeth without injuring it, he began parading up
and down the forest ways.

"They'll all certainly envy me this nice plump
Grouse," he thought. "And they won't be so ready

293

294 MIGHTY MIKKO

to call me awkward and lumbering after this, either!"

Presently Mikko, the Fox, sauntered by. He saw
at once that Osmo was showing off and he determined
that the Bear would not get the satisfacion of any ad-
miration from him. So he pretended not to see the
Grouse at all. Instead he pointed his nose upwards
and sniffed.

"Um! Um!" grunted Osmo, trying to attract atten-
tion to himself.

"Ah," Mikko remarked, casually, "is that you, Osmo?
What way is the wind blowing to-day? Can you tell
me?"

Osmo, of course, could not answer without opening
his mouth, so he grunted again hoping that Mikko
would have to notice why he couldn't answer. But the
Fox didn't glance at him at all. With his nose still
pointed upwards he kept sniffing the air.

"It seems to me it's from the South," he said. "Isn't
it from the South, Osmo?"

"Um! Um! Um!" the Bear grunted.

"You say it is from the South, Osmo ? Are you sure?"

"Um! Um!" Osmo repeated, growing every moment
more impatient.

"Oh, not from the South, you say. Then from what
direction is it blowing?"

THE BEAR SAYS NORTH 295

By this time the Bear was so exasperated by Mikko's
interest in the wind when he should have been admiring
the Grouse that he forgot himself, opened his mouth,
and roared out:

"North!"

Of course the instant he opened his mouth, the Grouse
flew away.

"Now see what you've done!" he stormed angrily.
'You've made me lose my fine plump Grouse!"

"I?" Mikko asked. "What had I to do with it?"

'You kept asking me about the wind until I opened
my mouth — that's what you did !"

The Fox shrugged his shoulders.

"Why did you open your mouth?"

"Well, you can't say, 'North!' without opening your
mouth, can you?" the Bear demanded.

The Fox laughed heartily.

"See here, Osmo, don't blame me. Blame yourself.
If I had had that Grouse in my mouth and you had
asked me about the wind, I should never have said,
'North !' "

"What would you have said?" the Bear asked.

Mikko, the rascal, laughed harder than ever. Then
he clenched his teeth and said:

"East!"

"Why, do you know," he said,
"my turnips and my bread
don't taste a bit like this!"

ADVENTURE XIII
OSMO'S SHARE

One day Osmo, the Bear, came to a
clearing where a Man was plowing.

"Good day," the Bear said. "What
are you doing?"

"I'm plowing," the Man answered.
"After I finish plowing I'm going to
harrow and then plant the field, half in wheat and half
in turnips."

"Yum! Yum!" Osmo thought to himself. "Good
food that — wheat and turnips!"
Aloud he said:

297

298 MIGHTY MIKKO

"I know how to plow and harrow. What do you say
to my helping you?"

"If you help me," the Man said, "I'll share the harvest
with you."

So Osmo set to work and between them they soon
had the field plowed, harrowed, and planted.

When Autumn came they went to get their crops.

At the turnip field the Man said:

"Now what do you want as your share — the part
that grows above the ground or the part that grows
below?"

Osmo, the Bear, seeing how green and luxuriant the
turnip tops were, said:

"Give me the part that grows above ground."

After they had harvested the turnips, they went on
to the wheat field where the Man put the same question.

The wheat stocks were all dry and shriveled. Osmo
looked at them wisely and said :

"This time you better give me the part that grows
under the ground."

The Man laughed in his sleeve and agreed.

One day the following winter the two met and the
Man invited the Bear to dinner. Osmo who was very
hungry accepted the invitation gladly.

First they had baked turnips.

OSMO'S SHARE 299

"Oh, but these are good!" Osmo said. "I've never
tasted anything better! What are they!"

"Why," the Man said, "they're the turnips from that
field that you and I planted together."

The Bear was greatly surprised.

Then they had some freshly baked bread.

"How good! How good !" Osmo exclaimed. "What
is it?"

"Just plain bread," the Man said, "baked from the
wheat you and I planted together."

Osmo was more surprised than ever.

"Why, do you know," he said, "my turnips and my
bread don't taste a bit like this!"

The Man burst out laughing and Osmo wondered
why.

/zr*£ person they met
was an old Horse. They
put their case to him

ADVENTURE XIV
THE REWARD OF KINDNESS

Osmo, the Bear, used to go day after
day to a field of growing rye and eat
as much as he wanted. The Farmer
noticed from the Bear's tracks that he
always came by the same route.

"I'll teach that Bear a lesson!" the
Farmer thought to himself.

So he set a snare made of a strong net and carefully
covered it over with leaves and branches.

That day Osmo, when he came as usual to the field,
got entangled in the net and was unable to escape.

The Farmer when he came and found him securely
caught was overjoyed.

301

302 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Now, you brute!" he said, 'I've got you and I'm
going to kill youl"

"Oh, master, don't do that!" the Bear implored.
"Don't kill me!"

"Why shouldn't I kill you?" the Farmer asked.
"Aren't you destroying my rye?"

"Let me off this time!" Osmo begged, "and I'll re-
ward you! I swear I will!"

He begged and begged until at last he prevailed
upon the Farmer to open the net and let him out.

"Now then," the Farmer said as soon as the Bear
was freed, "how are you going to reward me?"

Osmo put a heavy paw on the Farmer's shoulder.

"This is how I'm going to reward you," he said: "I'm
going to eat you up !"

"What!" the Farmer exclaimed, "is that your idea
of a reward for kindness?"

"Exactly!" Osmo declared. "In this world that is
the reward kindness always gets! Ask any one!"

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" the Farmer
cried.

"Very well. I'll prove to you that I'm right. We'll
ask the first person we meet."

The first person they met was an old Horse. They
put their case to him.

THE REWARD OF KINDNESS 303

"The Bear is right," the old Horse said. "Look at
me: For thirty years I gave my master faithful service
and just this morning I heard him say: 'It's time we
killed that old plug! He's no good for work any more
and he's only eating his head off !'

The Bear squinted his little eyes.

"You see!"

"No, I don't see!" the Farmer insisted. "We must
ask some one else."

They walked on a little farther until they met an
old Dog. They put their case to him and at once
the Dog said:

"The Bear is right! Look at me: I gave my master a
life time of faithful service and just this morning I
overheard him say: 'It's time we killed that old Dog!'
Alas, alas, in this wicked world goodness is always so
rewarded!"

But still the Farmer was unsatisfied and to humor
him Osmo said that he was willing that they should put
their case once more to the judgment of an outsider.

The next person they met was Mikko, the Fox.
Mikko listened carefully and then drawing the Farmer
aside he whispered :

"If I give judgment in your favor will you let me
carry off all the chickens in your hen-house?"

304« MIGHTY MIKKO

"Indeed I will!" the Farmer promised.

Then Mikko cleared his throat importantly and said:

"H'm! H'm! To give fair judgment in this case
I must go over all the ground. First show me the field
of rye and the damage Osmo did."

So they went to the field and the Fox, after he had
appraised the damage, shook his head seriously.

"It was certainly wicked of Osmo eating all that
rye! . . . Now show me the net."

So they went to the snare and the Fox examined it
carefully.

'You say the Bear got entangled in this snare. I
want to see just how he did it."

Osmo showed just how he had been caught.

"Get all the way in," the Fox said. "I want to make
sure that you couldn't possibly get out unaided."

So the Bear entangled himself again in the net and
proved that he couldn't possibly get out unaided.

"Well," said Mikko, the rascal, "y°u deserved to
get caught the first time and now that you're in there
again you can just stay there! Come on, Mr. Farmer."

So Mikko and the Farmer went off leaving Osmo
to his fate.

That night the Fox went to the Farmer's hen-house
to claim his reward. When he came in the chickens,

THE REWARD OF KINDNESS 305

of course, set up an awful squawking that aroused the
family. The Farmer stayed in bed but he sent his wife
out with a stout club.

"It sounds to me," he said, "as if some rascally Fox
is trying to steal our hens. If you catch him, don't be
gentle with him!"

"Gentle!" repeated the wife significantly.

She hurried out to the hen-house and when she found
Mikko inside she gave him an awful beating. In fact
he barely escaped with his life.

"Ah !" he said to himself as he limped painfully home,
"to think that this is the reward my kindness has re-
ceived! Oh, what a wicked, wicked world this is!"

With that the Bear lifted his
paw and the little mouse
scampered off

ADVENTURE XV
THE BEAR AND THE MOUSE

When Osmo, the Bear, was left
alone in the net, he thrashed about this
way and that until he was exhausted.
Then he fell asleep.

While he slept a host of little Mice
began playing all over his great body.
Their tiny feet tickled him and he woke with a start.
The Mice scampered off, all but one that Osmo caught
under his paw.

"Tweek! Tweek!" the frightened little Mouse cried.
"Let me go! Let me go! Please let me go! If you do
I'll reward you some day! I promise I will!"

307

308 MIGHTY MIKKO

Osmo let out a great roar of laughter.

"What, little one? You'll reward me! Ha! Ha!
That is good ! The Mouse will reward the Bear ! Well
now, that is a joke! However, little one, I will let you
go! You're too weak and insignificant for me to kill
and too small to eat. So run along!"

With that the Bear lifted his paw and the little
Mouse scampered off.

''It will reward me for my kindness!" Osmo repeated,
and in spite of the fact that he was fast caught in a
net he shook again with laughter.

He was still laughing when the little Mouse returned
with a great army of his fellows. All the host at once
began gnawing at the ropes of the net and in no time
at all they had freed the big Bear.

"You see," the little Mouse said, "although we are
weak and insignificant we can reward a kindness!"

Osmo was so ashamed for having laughed at the Mice
on account of their size that all he could say as he
shambled off into the forest was :

"Thanks!"

ADVENTURE XVI
THE LAST OF OSMO

There was a Farmer that used to
drive his sledge into the forest to cut
wood. Always as he drove he shouted
abusively at his Horse.

"Go along, you old plug!" he'd say.
"What do you think you're good for,
anyway? If you don't move along more lively I'll give
you to the Bear for his supper — that's what I'll do
with you!"

Now Osmo, the Bear, heard about this, how the
Farmer was always talking about giving him his Horse,
so one afternoon while the Farmer was going through

309

810 MIGHTY MIKKO

his usual tirade Osmo suddenly stepped out of the
bushes and said:

"Well, Mr. Farmer, here I am! Suppose you give
me my supper."

The Farmer was greatly taken back.

"I didn't really mean what I was saying," he stam-
mered. "He's a good Horse but he's a little lazy —
that's all."

Osmo stood there swaying his shoulders and twisting
his head.

"Even if he is lazy he'll taste all right to me. Come
along, Mr. Farmer, hand him over as you've promised
to do this long time!"

"But I can't afford to give you my Horse!" the
Farmer cried. "He's the only Horse I've got!"

But the Bear was firm.

"No matter! You have to keep your word!"

"See here," the Farmer begged, "let me off on giving
you my Horse and I tell you what I'll do: I'll give you
my Cow. I can spare the Cow better."

"When will you give me the Cow?" the Bear asked.

"To-morrow," the Farmer promised.

"Very well," Osmo said, "if you deliver me the Cow
to-morrow I'll let you off on the Horse. But see you
keep your word!"

THE LAST OF OSMO 311

On his way home that afternoon the Farmer visited
his traps. In one he found Mikko, the Fox. Mikko,
the little rascal, begged for his life so piteously that
the Farmer with a laugh freed him.

'You've done me a good turn," Mikko said, "and
some day I'll do something for you. Just wait and
see if I don't."

Well, early next morning the Farmer put his Cow on
the sledge and started off for the forest. On the way
he met Mikko.

"Good morning," Mikko said. "Where are you going
with your Cow?"

The Farmer stopped and told Mikko about his bar-
gain with the Bear.

"See here," the Fox said, "I promised you yesterday
that some day I'd do you a good turn. That day has
come! I'm going to save you your Cow and show you
how you can kill that old Bear once and for all. But
if I do this, you'll have to give me the Bear's carcass
after he's dead and gone."

"I'll be glad enough to do that," the Farmer declared.
"Save me my Cow and you may have all of that old Bear
that you want!"

"Well then," Mikko said, "go home with the Cow as
quickly as you can and come back here with ten distaffs.

312/ MIGHTY MIKKO

My plan is to have you put five of the distaffs around
my neck and five around my tail. I can make an awful
noise rattling them. When the Bear hears me and won-
ders who I am, do you say to him: 'Oh! That must be
my son, the Hunter! Don't you hear the rattle of his
musket?' Then between us we'll finish that old Bear."

The Farmer did as the Fox directed. He drove the
Cow home and returned to the forest with ten distaffs,
five of which he fastened about the Fox's neck and five
about his tail. Then he drove the sledge on to the place
where he was to meet the Bear and Mikko, the Fox,
crept along quietly behind him.

"Where's my Cow?" the Bear demanded as soon as
the sledge appeared.

"I've come to talk to you about that," the Farmer
began.

Just then there was an awful rattle of something in
the bushes behind the Farmer.

"What's that?" the Bear cried.

"Oh," the Farmer said, "that must be my son, the
Hunter! Don't you hear the rattle of his musket?"

The Bear shook in terror.

"The Hunter, you say! Mercy me, what shall I do!
Oh, Mr. Farmer, save me from the Hunter and I'll for-
give you the Cow!"

THE LAST OF OSMO 513

"Very well," the Farmer promised, "I'll do my best!
Lie down and I'll try to make the Hunter believe
you're only a log."

So the Bear lay down on the ground and stayed per-
fectly quiet.

"Father," called the Fox in a voice that sounded like
the Hunter's, "what's that big brown thing lying on the
ground near you? Is it a Bear?"

"No, son," the Farmer called back, "that isn't a Bear.
It's only a log of wood."

"If it's a log of wood, father, chop it up!"

The Farmer raised his ax.

"Don't really chop me!" the Bear begged in a whis-
per. "Just pretend to."

"This is too good a log to chop up," the Farmer
said.

"Well, father," said the voice from the bushes, "if
it's such a good log you better put it on your sledge and
take it home."

"Lie still," the Farmer whispered, "while I put you
on the sledge."

So the Bear lay stiff and quiet and the Farmer
dragged him on to the sledge.

"Father," the voice said, "you better tie that log down
to keep it from rolling off."

314 MIGHTY MIKKO

"Don't move," the Farmer whispered, "and I'll tie
you down just as if you were a log."

So the Bear lay perfectly still while the Farmer lashed
him securely to the sledge.

"Father, are you sure that log can't roll off?"

"Yes, son," the Farmer said, "I'm sure it can't roll
off now."

"Then, father, drive your ax into the end of the log
and off we'll go!"

At that the Farmer raised his ax and with one mighty
blow buried it in the neck of the Bear.

So that was the end of poor old lumbering Osmo !

The Farmer was saved both his Horse and his Cow
and Mikko, the rascal, feasted on Bear meat for a week.

CENT!

CHILD

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Full text of "Mighty Mikko; a book of Finnish fairy tales and folk tales"

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